Sen. Cervantes video appears at odds with Sacramento police account of May encounter
New video released Thursday by attorneys for south state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes appear to counter Sacramento police officers’ characterization of her condition and behavior following the midtown traffic collision in May that sent the lawmaker to the hospital, where she was cited by officers.
The video’s release follows a legal claim that Cervantes filed last week against the Sacramento Police Department and the city after officers cited her for suspicion of DUI, claiming the lawmaker, chair of the state Senate Elections Committee, was under the influence at the time of the collision.
The charges were later dropped.
The heavily-edited, nearly 15-minute video is culled from body camera footage of officers with Cervantes, D-Riverside, at Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center, where she went for treatment and evaulation; and police interviews with the other driver involved in the May 19 collision at the scene and during questioning in the days after the incident.
The video, reviewed by The Sacramento Bee, is interspersed throughout with narrative panels describing the action and seeking to illustrate Cervantes’ version of events.
A Sacramento Police Department spokesperson Thursday said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
At various points, the video asserts that officers at the hospital falsely claimed in reports and requests for a search warrant that Cervantes’ gait was unsteady, that she spoke with slow and slurred speech and refused to submit to a blood test. The attorneys’ video alleged officers attempted to “justify their wrongful arrest of Senator Cervantes.”
The video begins with security camera footage of the collision at 14th and S streets between the unnamed driver and Cervantes. The driver’s SUV appears to roll through a stop sign on 14th Street and into the path of the eastbound Cervantes on S Street before colliding with the senator’s sedan. Cervantes was taken by another vehicle to the hospital.
One officer at the hospital claimed it was suspicious that Cervantes was driven to the medical center, according to the video. The video also alleged the officer was “under pressure to justify a baseless warrant,” presumably from his superiors, at the hospital.
At various points, the panels assert the responding officers submitted a false report to obtain a search warrant seeking blood samples from Cervantes, though the unnamed driver caused the collision; citing officers’ description of Cervantes’ “unsteady gait” at the hospital.
“The police falsely claimed Senator Cervantes ‘unsteady gait’ without mentioning she was injured,” one panel, overlaid on an image of the officers’ report, reads. “Footage shows that even with her injuries, Senator Cervantes was not walking with an ‘unsteady gait.’”
Officers at the hospital asked at least twice for Cervantes to take a “horizontal gaze” field sobriety test. The lawmaker instead offered to take a blood test, the video shows. Officers in their report say Cervantes declined to submit to a blood test and would not do so unless the officers obtained a warrant.
“The footage shows otherwise,” the video panel read.
The excerpted report shown underneath the panel in the video also refers to Cervantes as “drowsy” behind sunglasses and speaking with “thick, slurred speech” at the hospital in apparent contrast to her recorded conversation with the officer.
“My back is really starting to get to me,” Cervantes said on video as she walked down a hospital hallway with the officer. Another narrative panel that followed read that police failed to mention Cervantes reiterated that she was injured in their request to a Sacramento Superior Court judge for a search warrant.
Cervantes, on the body camera video obtained by her attorneys, goes on to describe to an attending emergency room physician where she felt discomfort following the collision.
“My back, my spine, everything on my left side,” she said. Cervantes is speaking clearly and is easily understood on the video. She tells the officer that she told the driver she was driving a state-owned vehicle. The driver gave her name and phone number, Cervantes told the officer.
“Police Department falsely claims Senator Cervantes has ‘slow speech,’ and ‘slurred speech,’” the panel read, adding Cervantes “spoke normally, does not slur her words and is able to recall details of the incident.”
The video later shows excerpts of officers’ initial exchange with the driver whose SUV struck Cervantes’ vehicle and a police interview with the woman three days after the incident.
The driver does not show a driver’s license, but does provide her driver’s license number, which the officer takes down, and a cellphone photograph of her license, the video shows. She does not have a physical copy of her insurance, but provided an image of it via email on her cellphone.
“That works perfectly,” the officer is heard on the video. It was not known if the driver was cited. The video does not show if she was asked to take a field sobriety test.
The driver said she wasn’t using a phone. She wore a safety belt and had no alcohol or drugs before the wreck, she told the officer, the video shows.
Three days later, the woman talked with a plainclothed officer about the incident, in what attorneys characterized as an attempt by police to “justify their wrongful arrest of Senator Cervantes.”
“That’s my follow up with this entire thing becase there’s body camera footage of (police) and things that are written in the report that are slightly different, and that’s why I’m clarifying,” the plainclothed officer said, before assuring the driver she did nothing wrong, telling her “Don’t worry about that stuff.”
“Even though she caused a serious accident and could not produce a driver’s license at the scene,” the video panel reads afterward.
Cervantes said she was falsely accused of being impaired and had been “accosted” and involuntarily detained by Sacramento police at the hospital.
Police officials at the time disputed the senator’s claim. The officers “remained professional throughout, taking time to explain the process and answer all of the senator’s questions,” a department spokesperson said in a statement at the time.
Cervantes insisted that samples of her blood drawn at the hospital would show no signs of drugs or alcohol in her system. Cervantes later released results of her hospital drug screen that confirmed it.
Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office on May 31 declined to file charges, saying Cervantes had no evidence of any measurable amount alcohol or drugs in her system when she was cited.
“The toxicology results were negative for any measurable amount of alcohol or drugs. We have reviewed all the submitted evidence, including police reports, witness statements, and laboratory results,” the District Attorney’s Office said in a statement announcing the decision. “Based on our ethical duty and the burden of proof in a criminal trial, the Sacramento County D.A.’s Office declines to file any charges in this case.”
But Cervantes said the incident had taken a toll on her and her family: “While my name was cleared, this ordeal was entirely unnecessary. It has also caused my family and me enormous stress and pain,” the state senator said after the D.A.’s decision. “No one deserves this.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 3:53 PM.
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