$750K Settlement Reached In Lawsuit Against Vallejo Officers

By Keith Burbank, Bay City News Service

VALLEJO, CA—A $750,000 settlement was reached in a civil rights suit against the city of Vallejo and four police officers in the alleged police beating of a resident, attorneys for the victim said Friday.

Carl Edwards, of Vallejo, was working on his fence on July 30, 2017, when a neighbor called 911 to tell police a Black man in black jeans and a white tank top was slinging rocks at her sons.

The two officers to arrive first, Officers Mark Thompson and Bret Wagoner, were told by the caller that Edwards was not perpetrator, according to Edwards' attorneys.

But the two officers radioed Officer Spencer Muniz-Bottomley and told him to contact Edwards and described him, Edwards' attorneys said.

Muniz-Bottomley's body-worn camera apparently shows him approach Edwards, who is on his porch standing passively. Muniz-Bottomley allegedly puts Edwards in a carotid hold immediately, and Edwards passes out briefly.

Edwards wakes up with Muniz-Bottomley pummeling him, Edwards' attorneys said. Thompson and Wagoner allegedly join in and Sgt. Steve Darden arrives and apparently punches Edwards several times while other officers restrain him.

A person across the street made a cellphone video of the alleged beating because he thought Edwards was going to die.

Edwards' attorneys said he was handcuffed, his face covered in his own blood as Muniz-Bottomley knelt on his neck.

"This was one of the most brutal, unprovoked police beatdowns I've seen in almost thirty years of practice," attorney Michael Haddad of Oakland-based Haddad and Sherwin, which represented Edwards, said in a statement. "Vallejo needs to rein in its officers."

Thompson and Wagoner allegedly solicited statements from two boys who vaguely described Edwards as the suspect, Edwards' attorneys said.

The boys were the ones shot at with rocks before their mother called 911. One boy was 10 years old and the other had developmental disabilities, according to attorneys for Edwards.

Their mother protested that Edwards was not the suspect as police solicited the statements from her sons.

Edwards was charged with multiple felonies for allegedly assaulting the boys and officers. The charges were dropped after 14 months because of insufficient evidence.

Edwards suffered a fractured nose, cuts and contusions and a shoulder injury. He has moved away from Vallejo.

"The Vallejo Police Department will not tolerate any acts of excessive force on our residents. As you know, parties may decide to settle cases for a variety of reasons," said Officer Brittany Jackson, spokesperson for the Vallejo Police Department. "The facts of this case remain heavily in dispute and there is no admission of fault or liability by either Plaintiff or Defendants. That said, we do wish to express our sincerest apologies that Mr. Edwards had a negative experience with the Vallejo Police Department."

"As a Police Department and a City, we are continually learning from our past mistakes and successes as we move forward," Jackson said. "We are actively working with our officers to bring awareness and education through ongoing training such as de-escalation tactics, implicit bias awareness, trauma-informed care, and principled policing. We are working hard to establish policies and a culture to avoid negative experiences between our citizens and officers, particularly those that may result in injury, and to honor the sanctity of life for all our community. As we look ahead, we will make every effort possible to ensure we are serving our community with the utmost professionalism."

The city has declared a public safety emergency, which the Vallejo Police Officers' Association has tried to thwart. The emergency allows police Chief Shawny Williams to make policy and policing changes without consulting the association.

The police department is also being reviewed by the California Department of Justice because of an alleged pattern of questionable uses of force and police shootings.

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