Innocent ‘from the beginning’: Jury acquits Rancho Cordova woman of assault against deputy
Kyrieanna Liles was overwhelmed with emotion sitting next to her attorney Thursday morning in a Sacramento courtroom.
The 24-year-old woman has spent the past six months incarcerated and accused of trying to run over a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy during an encounter last year outside her Rancho Cordova home. She cried out of happiness after a jury found her not guilty of assault with a deadly weapon — a vehicle — upon a police officer.
The jury also acquitted Liles on two lesser charges of assault with a deadly weapon and assault, options the jurors could have chosen had they felt she was guilty of any wrongdoing in that encounter with the deputy. The jurors reached their verdict after about two hours of deliberation.
Deputy Public Defender Carrie Claremon, who represented Liles in her criminal trial, has argued that sheriff’s body camera video shows Liles hit the brakes as soon as she saw Deputy Matthew Bollinger run in front of her vehicle.
“I think the jury obviously did the right thing,” Claremon said outside of court moments after the jury’s verdict was announced. “She’s been an innocent woman from the beginning.”
In her closing arguments Wednesday, Deputy District Attorney Jenna Forster told the jury that Liles had been roaming her neighborhood carrying a chef’s knife with a 6-inch blade and tried to break into a neighbor’s home searching for her missing dog. The prosecutor said Liles aimed her car at the deputy, who was running to cover, moments after she drove the vehicle onto the front lawn to make her escape.
“She drove that vehicle at Deputy Bollinger,” Forster argued. “When you drive a car straight at someone, you can make (the vehicle) a deadly weapon.”
The Nov. 20 confrontation between Liles and three deputies occurred outside her home on Malaga Way, but the incident began to unfold about 30 minutes earlier that morning. About 10:20 a.m., Liles called authorities to report her dog was missing, and that she believed her neighbor stole her dog, which she could hear barking from their backyard. She hung up the call before dispatchers could ask her any more questions.
Forster told the jury that dispatchers repeatedly tried calling Liles back, but she didn’t answer. She answered her phone several minutes after her initial call, telling dispatchers she got her dog back and quickly hung up.
About 10:45 a.m., Rancho Cordova police were called to an Augibi Way home, where residents reported an unknown woman with a knife searching for her dog was trying to break into their home. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office is contracted to have deputies provide police services for Rancho Cordova.
The neighbors’ Ring doorbell camera captured Liles on their front lawn holding the chef’s knife. The prosecutor said it’s unclear whether Liles was suffering from a mental health crisis or under the influence of drugs when she armed herself to look for her missing dog. She argued the deputies had to investigate; ignoring it would’ve been wrong.
Forster told the jury the deputies tried to speak with Liles when they first approached her sitting in the driver’s seat of her white Dodge Challenger in the driveway, but she was uncooperative and turned on her car and started to pull out of the driveway in reverse despite the deputies’ attempts to de-escalate the situation. Liles then drove the car forward on the driveway.
The Sheriff’s Office in January released body camera video that showed deputies firing their guns 10 times at the Liles as she drove away from them in her car. Bollinger and Deputy Spencer Hettema, a trainee at the time, each fired their service weapons.
Liles was wounded. Pursuing deputies caught up to Liles several blocks away and took her into custody without further incident.
The defense attorney argued that Liles was a “distraught” woman looking for her dog who called police for help, and that she was later assaulted by the deputy who grabbed her by the wrist to try and pull her out of her parked car in her own driveway without any legal justification.
Claremon told the jury on Wednesday that Liles made a split-second decision to get away from this assault by first pulling out of the driveway in reverse, before driving forward onto the driveway and then the lawn to avoid any deputies or patrol vehicles behind her. She implored the jurors to tell law enforcement they did it wrong this time.
“That’s bad police work,” Claremon argued. “The law is you don’t have to comply with the police when they’re not acting in a lawful performance of their duties.”
Liles has been held in custody at the Sacramento County Jail, with her bail amount set at $500,000.
After the not guilty verdict was announced Thursday, Judge Shellyanne W.L. Chang ordered Liles to be released from jail as soon as possible and exonerated her bail.
The defense attorney asked the judge to release Liles immediately, so she could walk freely out of the courtroom. The judge rejected Claremon’s request, saying she wasn’t going to override any sheriff’s procedures required to release an inmate.
So, the court bailiff handcuffed Liles again and escorted her back into custody. Outside the courtroom, Claremon said it could be another several hours before Liles is released from custody.
“She should be free to walk out of this courtroom with me, to see her family,” Claremon told The Sacramento Bee. “She’s a free woman now, and she’s obviously still not free.”
The jury never saw video of the deputies firing their guns at Liles in her car as she fled. The judge excluded that evidence from the trial on the grounds it was irrelevant to the criminal charge filed against Liles; over repeated objections from the defense attorney. The prosecutor argued the deputies were not on trial in this case; Liles was.
Outside the courtroom, Claremon said it was obvious to anyone watching video of the shooting that the wrong person was on trial.
“I wish the jury got to see the video and the shooting part as they shot at her 10 times as she was fleeing their assault,” Claremon said. “It’s totally unfair and a miscarriage of justice that they didn’t get to see the shooting.”
While in custody, Liles filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Sacramento County and the Sheriff’s Office that accuses the deputies of using excessive force in the November incident. That case is pending and due back in court July 12 for a defense motion to dismiss Liles’ case. Bollinger and Hettema are among the defendants listed in the lawsuit filed in February by Sacramento civil rights attorney Mark Merin.
Merin said Thursday’s not guilty verdict means Liles will be seeking more damages in the civil rights lawsuit, considering she had to remain in jail for six months and go through a criminal jury trial to prove her innocence.
“I thought it is was really wrong to exclude evidence of the shooting,” Merin said about the criminal trial. “It was amazing that the jury still saw through the prosecution’s attempt to show this was a lawful contact.”
This story was originally published May 30, 2024 at 1:08 PM.
