DA’s Office Trumps Up Charges and Overplays Incident for PR Gain

If you read the press clippings that were covered in the local paper, a West Sacramento man with a history of violence against police has been convicted of a felony stemming from a confrontation he had with officers this spring.  According to a press release that was covered in all of the local papers, including the Sacramento Bee, a Yolo County jury convicted Anthony Gino Roman, 43, on one felony count of resisting a police officer in the performance of his duties by use of force or violence.

As usual however, the District Attorney’s office presented a very one-sided view of what happened and the local papers, including the Bee never bothered to try to get the other side of the story.

Here’s the Sacramento Bee’s rendition of what happened:

West Sacramento police officers answered a call [to a] residence on April 24. According to the caller, Roman had been behaving erratically and residents were afraid.

Upon entering the residence, officers encountered Roman and ordered him to put his hands in the air. Roman refused to comply and turned his back to the officers and reached into his pockets.

Roman ignored the officers’ commands to show his hands and threw an object onto the ground. One of the residents yelled that Roman had a knife.

When the officers attempted to take him into custody, Roman became violent. After officers arrested him, they found a folding pocket knife in his pocket.

Roman is on probation for a being convicted of a similar charge in 2004 and has a history of being violent with the police, Reisig said. In the previous case, he was under the influence of methamphetamine and fought West Sacramento officers using brass knuckles, Reisig said.

Deputy District Attorney Jim Walker who prosecuted the case said: “It’s a scary situation when officers are responding to a call for help and they come face-to-face with a fighting, [a] violent man. West Sacramento officers should be commended for handling the situation without anybody getting seriously hurt.”

Roman’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 1. He faces up to three years and eight months in state prison.

What drew my attention to this story was the part about the knife.  The only knife that was found on the suspect was a pocket knife, that was folded in his pocket.  How dangerous a threat was that knife?

The Vanguard spoke with Deputy Public Defender Richard Van Zandt and got a much different picture.

Mr. Roman was breaking no law when police were called to the residence. The other residents, his family, had police called because he was behaving erratically. Police, knowing Mr. Roman’s mental health history, were there to detain him for a 5150 hold. Police arrested him for misdemeanor resisting arrest and left him at the hospital for a mental health evaluation and 72-hour hold.

Only when the case got to the District Attorney’s Office did the case turn into a felony. Re the 2004 case, the court threw out the battery against the police charge due to lack of evidence.

In the current case, the issue was whether police used excessive force. The jury did not find police used excessive force, notwithstanding the investigating officer inflicted about a half-dozen “distractionary strikes” with a closed fist on Mr. Roman’s upper back and about the same amount of closed baton strikes to the same area. Before police pinned him to the bed and delivered these strikes, Mr. Roman was reaching into his fanny pack, where no weapon was found; he was not reaching into his pocket, as the press release states.

There are several key points that need to be illustrated here.  The press release never mentioned that this was a mentally ill individual, the police were aware of this when they responded to the call.  The family had called the police to protect him not to have put him in prison.  They are apparently very upset that the District Attorney’s Office decided to give him prison time.

The public defender in this case made it clear that the problem was not with the police who had initially charged him with misdemeanor resisting arrest, but rather with the District Attorney who unnecessarily increased this to a felony.  It is clear that as this individual suffers from mental illness, that he should get treatment not jail time.

But instead the District Attorney office played this into a case about getting a dangerous man with a history of attacking police officers off the street.  Nowhere in their release did they mention his history of mental illness, only his 2004 brush with the law and use of meth.

The knife issue was also crucial.  It is what originally drew me to look into the case more.  Anytime you have a resisting arrest charge but no other charge, it is a red flag that there is a possibility of abuse either by police or the prosecutor.  In this case, the knife is extremely suspicious.  That was used as a pretense for escalation in the encounter, but the knife was in the pocket, folded up.  Police say he reached for the knife, but the witnesses said he was reaching for his fanny-pack where there were no weapons.  The folded up pocket knife hardly represented a threat to police.

One of the issues that continues to plague law enforcement is how to treat mentally disturbed individuals who are not complying with orders from law enforcement.  This is part of what happened in Woodland when the individual died after being tasered.  Is it really resisting arrest?  And is jail the proper remedy for an individual suffering from these kinds of problems?

This case definitely raises a lot of legitimate points, but the public would never know that based on the simple press release and news coverage that suggested that a man with a history of violence for the police, who was arrested five years ago for attacking police while on meth, is now off the street and behind bars.  That certainly does not serve the public’s need for accurate information.

What is clear here is that the public was not served well by the District Attorney’s office in their decision to charge this as a felony rather than a simple misdemeanor and then a referral for help.  And the public was not served well by the District Attorney’s office’s self-serving press release that misled the public as to the nature of this incident.

—David M. Greenwald reporting