By Cheyenne Galloway
OAKLAND, CA – Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputies brutally attacked a hospitalized woman waiting for a CT scan to treat a potential head injury, according to a lawsuit filed here.
Disregarding the woman’s current state, the deputies were adamant about arresting the woman before she could receive her federally mandated screening, according to the federal civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday by the law firm of Pointer & Buelna.
As reported in the lawsuit, the deputies punched the woman in the head, further exacerbating her previous head injury, and later lifted her by the throat and slammed her onto the hospital bed. The attacks by the Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies caused the woman to fall and hit her head on the nearby table, resulting in a seizure and loss of consciousness, said Pointer & Buelna.
Filed in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of San Francisco, the lawsuit used in the Pointer & Buelna statement outlines the series of events that led the woman to the hospital, noting on Aug. 9, 2022, the victim was transferred to Kaiser San Leandro Medical Center to receive treatment for the injuries she obtained at the Alameda County Superior Court in Hayward after a woman repeatedly punched the victim in the head with a cell phone.
The lawsuit charges Sheriff’s deputies struck the victim twice in the head while they were still in the courthouse. This is when the victim fell and further injured her head on the nearby table, causing her to seize and lose consciousness, claims Pointer & Buelna.
Once in Kaiser’s emergency department, the victim required immediate care, alleges the suit, and a CT scan to ensure she did not procure any severe head injuries, which the on-duty Kaiser ER physician determined.
According to the Pointer & Buelna statement, sheriff’s deputies told the emergency department personnel the woman did not require a CT scan or paper gown, because she “was going to jail.”
Deputies noted that the woman’s pleas for a gown and treatment should be regarded as “a refusal of medical treatment,” according to Pointer & Buelna.
Handcuffed to the hospital bed, the victim continued to request a CT scan; it was at this point that the officers punched her again, forcefully took her by the throat, and slammed her back into the hospital bed, resulting in her loss of consciousness for the second time, the lawsuit declares and Pointer & Buelna cites.
The woman never received the medical attention she desperately needed and pleaded for, which violates the federally mandated screening and stabilization protocol, according to the lawsuit, adding the victim was discharged from the hospital and arrested “with debilitating head and body pain, wrist lacerations, and a boot imprint on her back.
Civil rights attorney Angel Alexander, based in Oakland’s Pointer & Buelna, Lawyers for the People, said, “First, the male deputies viciously attacked the victim in the courthouse, leaving her bloodied and concussed, then they hauled her off to the hospital where they continued their unnecessary and unreasonable attack. The level of callousness, brutality, and arrogance these deputies displayed is stunning even by their standards.”
“From start to finish, these deputies behaved in a manner consistent with a band of thugs who delighted in attacking the unarmed mother of two rather than disciplined law enforcement officers who are sworn to protect and serve,” concluded civil rights attorney Treva R. Stewart, another associate of Pointer & Buelna.
