Shot in face at Sacramento protest, legal observer demands criminal charges for officer
A legal observer who says a Sacramento police officer shot him in the face with a “less lethal” projectile as he watched last month’s protest demonstrations boil over has formally filed a complaint with the police department and is asking the district attorney to pursue criminal charges against the involved officer or officers.
Danny Garza, a board member with the Sacramento chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, says he suffered a concussion and various other injuries after being shot during a May 30 protest demonstration that took place downtown, part of a nationwide response to the Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In his formal complaint, Garza calls for a variety of charges to be brought against the officer or officers who shot him, ranging from false imprisonment and torture to assault with a deadly weapon, and demands “the immediate arrest” of those responsible for his injuries, according to a statement from the law office of his attorney, Mark Merin.
Garza says police not only offered him no assistance, but continued to shoot at him as medics at the scene gave him medical attention.
“One of the nurses actually covered my body with her own,” Garza said during a Zoom call with news media Monday morning.
Garza, Merin and the local National Lawyers Guild chapter on Monday jointly released a copy of the complaint, which is being filed with the Sacramento Police Department’s internal affairs department and the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission.
The complaint alleges, in part, that officers’ actions constituted unlawful deadly force.
In a written statement to The Sacramento Bee on Monday, Sacramento Police spokeswoman Sgt. Sabrina Briggs said the department is “aware of the allegations being made in this incident” but that it has “not confirmed that the injuries sustained in this incident are due to a Sacramento Police Department use of force.”
“Multiple outside police agencies have assisted with these protests. If the injuries are determined to have been sustained due to a Sacramento Police Department use of force, per department policy, the use of force will be reviewed,” Briggs wrote.
Earlier in June, Briggs told The Bee she did not have an exact number of incidents being reviewed by the department at that time, and she said it would only disclose how many officers are being investigated for protest-related incidents in response to a public records act request, which remains pending.
Garza is also forwarding his complaint to numerous other local, state and national agencies, including the Sacramento County District Attorney Office, the mayor’s office, Sacramento City Council, the California Attorney General and U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division, to ask for their review of the incident.
On Monday, he also shared with news media photos and video showing the shooting and its aftermath from his perspective.
Garza says he was clearly distinguished from demonstrators involved with the protest, standing away from the heavier crowds and wearing his neon-green hat that labels himself a legal observer.
He was accompanied by Elizabeth Kim, board president of the National Lawyers Guild’s Sacramento chapter. The pair watched the protest proceed from the Sacramento County Main Jail at 7th and I streets, over to K and J streets and then into midtown.
Kim and Garza were initially behind the police line but were then forced in front of it, the complaint alleges, when a “line of officers was able to force Mr. Garza and Ms. Kim in front of the police line and into the line-of-fire, through physical intimidation, brandishing of weapons, display of force, and an overwhelming police presence.”
“I’m not with them,” Garza tells officers in a phone video showing him being forced in front of the police line. “I’m not interfering,” he insists repeatedly.
Garza continued observing, wearing a “military-style gas mask” amid deployments of tear gas and flash-bang grenades as the police lines advanced to J and 21st streets, where protesters and police engaged in a standoff.
Standing about 25 feet away, Garza says he observed someone from behind him throw an object, which appears in Garza’s video to be a water bottle, toward the police line.
“The object was thrown high above the police line and the object landed far behind the police line, without striking any officer,” the complaint says. “An officer lifted his rifle, possibly in reaction to the object being thrown and landing behind the police line. The officer aimed his firearm at Mr. Garza and fired.”
Garza fell to the ground, and “felt severe pain and blood trickling from his face,” having been shot on the left side of his forehead, the complaint says. He shouted “a series of expletives towards the officers, fueled by rage and adrenaline from being shot in the face.”
He then confronted the officer he believed to have shot him. Garza asks an officer holding a rifle for his badge number, asking him for it five times before receiving it, the video shows. The complaint says Garza believes but is not certain that this was the same officer who shot him in the face.
Officers from the Sacramento Police Department were not displaying their badge numbers, names or department patch during the protest, a violation of state law, the complaint alleges.
As medics attempted to apply a bandage to Garza’s bleeding head, police again fired their weapons toward Mr. Garza and the medics, he complaint says.
“Mr. Garza and the medics repeatedly yelled ‘Medic! Medic! Don’t shoot!’” the complaint says. Both Garza and the medics caring for him were hit with pepper-balls.
The shooting hospitalized Garza, who suffered a concussion and injured his wrist and shoulder from falling down after he was shot, he said Monday.
For a week after the incident, Garza’s eye was partially swollen shut, and he continues to experience “significant and debilitating symptoms,” mostly related to his memory.
“It’s made it almost impossible to work, to have any social life … for a long time I had black holes in my memory. I had to start every conversation with, ‘I don’t remember if I told you, but I got shot in the face.’”
City, police sued in federal court
Garza is among four plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, also filed earlier this month by Merin, that seeks class-action status for protesters who allege their demonstrations were met with “unreasonable and excessive use of force by the Sacramento Police Department.”
The federal suit also includes Garza’s account of being struck by the projectile on May 30, and calls for a preliminary injunction “to end the use of the projectiles which cause both death and permanent disability and were recently outlawed against demonstrators in Seattle and Portland.”
“In reality, projectile weapons have the ability to severely injure, permanently disable, and kill targets,” the suit said.
The recently filed complaint also demands the release of body camera footage and that “all other evidence of the incident” be preserved by the Police Department.
Garza also intends to seek civil damages from the involved officer or officers.
His complaint also asks for specific identification of the type of weapon and ammunition with which he was shot.
This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 2:20 PM.
