Sacramento jailers appear to use excess force vs. detainee in newly released sheriff’s video
Newly released videos from a 2023 incident at the Sacramento County Main Jail show a man who appeared to be injured during a struggle with sheriff’s deputies while in custody.
In videos released by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and reviewed by The Sacramento Bee, the man, identified as Timothy Adger in deputies’ reports, shouted and appeared to be in pain during the Feb. 18, 2023, incident.
Sacramento police had arrested Adger on suspicion of battery, resisting or obstructing a peace officer, and inflicting undue suffering or pain on a dependent. Adger also allegedly threatened to kill officers and challenged them to fight, deputies said in reports citing a Sacramento police probable cause warrant.
Adger later pleaded out to the 2023 charges in Sacramento Superior Court, court records showed. He is currently being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the I Street facility downtown in a different case, jail records show.
Arresting officers had earlier placed a spit mask over the man’s head, deputies said in reports, indicating he had spit on or was combative with officers.
Deputies appeared to grab and struggle with the man, pulling his arms behind his back during a pat-down search in a narrow, walled area of the jail known as the “patbox.” Deputies said they moved to restrain him after repeatedly ordering him to open his mouth so they could continue the search.
A deputy is heard on the video telling Adger, “Open your mouth. Open it up.”
“Don’t touch me, cuz,” Adger answered, seconds before deputies grabbed him, according to the video.
The video was released Saturday morning by the Sheriff’s Office after an investigation into the incident. The video was released under Senate Bill 16, which requires disclosure of certain records involving use of force or misconduct.
The results of the investigation were not disclosed with the release. Sheriff’s officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the findings.
The custodial deputies involved were Spenser Heichlinger and Trenton Howze, according to Sheriff’s Office records accompanying the video’s release. Howze, in a narrative report filed after the incident, said Adger flinched as he told the deputy not to touch him and that he feared Adger would strike him.
Howze described the interaction in his report: “Due to his threatening behavior, I moved to secure (Adger) to a wall. I moved to pin him to the left wall of the patbox in order to safely gain control of his arms.”
Howze said Adger leaned forward and tucked his arms to his chest. The deputy took his left arm and Deputy Heichlinger took the right. Both deputies put Adger’s arms behind his back in what Howze described as a “control hold.”
It was during the deputies’ control hold that Adger began to yell out in pain, according to the video.
“He broke my arm. Help,” the man shouted, then began to yell as he was taken to the jail’s intake area to be photographed.
Howze wrote in his report that he struggled to get Adger’s arm into a control hold, describing how he grabbed the man by his upper left arm and wrist as he tried to bring the arm up his back while Adger pushed downward. Adger stopped moving his arm downward as it neared the base of his neck, but Howze’s momentum pushed the hold to a higher position, the report stated.
Heichlinger, in his statement, said he and Howze “unintentionally placed (Adger) in a dual-control hold,” and realized it when Adger yelled out.
“You broke my arm,” Howze said Adger told him as the deputies escorted him to intake. Howze said he did not believe Adger.
“This statement is commonly made by arrestees placed in control holds,” Howze wrote. “I had no other reason to believe Adger’s claim was true and I maintained my escort grip.”
The deputy ordered the man to “stop yelling,” but the man continued to scream in apparent pain for several minutes as he was photographed while restrained and placed into a jail sobering cell, the video showed.
Inside the cell, at least three deputies put the man onto his stomach on the ground. One grabbed an arm and held it behind his back, another raised the man’s other arm above his head, while a third restrained his ankles, according to the video.
The man continued to yell in pain and appeared to attempt to comply with orders to place his hands underneath his stomach on the floor.
“We’re giving you very simple instructions to put your hands underneath your belly button,” one deputy said, as the man continued to yell and plead that he was trying to follow the instructions. “If you stand up before the door closes, you’re getting tased. You understand that?” the deputy said before leaving the cell.
“I won’t move,” Adger said as the deputies left the sobering cell.
Another video showed the man seated minutes later in the jail’s medical intake, surrounded by deputies as a jail nurse prepared to evaluate him. He groaned as deputies lifted him off a bench.
“Can you talk with the nurse for us? Speak to the nurse and tell her what’s your issue. What’s going on, sir?” one of the deputies is heard on the video.
“Did you have this problem a long time ago, or is this new?” the nurse asked. A deputy responded: “I think they said they heard a ‘pop’ when they grabbed him.”
The man groaned again when the nurse touched his elbow.
“My elbow dislocated. He broke my elbow,” the man said, then, to the deputy, “You broke my elbow, Cuz.”
“We have to have him X-rayed if that’s the problem,” the nurse told the deputy.
“OK,” the deputy answered, “Is that your medical opinion that his elbow’s broken, or is that his opinion?” The nurse asked the man to raise his arm again. He groaned as he did so and the nurse called again for an X-ray.
“He said he heard a ‘pop,” the nurse said. A female voice off-camera disagreed.
“He didn’t hear a ‘pop,’ the woman said. “We don’t know where the ‘pop’ really came from.”
Deputies then lifted the man from the bench as a van was called to take him to a nearby hospital. Adger struggled to stand and walk, and deputies appeared skeptical.
“You can stand. Stand up,” one deputy said. The deputies walked the man to a jail segregation unit before the video ended.
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