Cop’s ‘reckless’ driving paralyzed man who shouldn’t have been arrested, lawsuit says

An officer’s “reckless” driving caused a handcuffed man to “violently” smash his head inside a prisoner compartment of a police van, where he was detained without a seat belt, according to a new federal lawsuit.

The ride permanently paralyzed Heriberto Alejandro Sanchez-Mayen after he was wrongly arrested, in violation of his civil rights, in St. Petersburg, Florida, on June 8, a complaint filed March 18 says.

He became quadriplegic and had both of his legs amputated, according to the complaint, which says he was then prosecuted until a criminal trespassing charge against him was dismissed in February.

The morning of June 8, Officer Sarah Gaddis arrested 60-year-old Sanchez-Mayen without a warrant or probable cause after she found him sleeping in a public green space, the complaint says.

At first, Gaddis told him she was going to write him a ticket for trespassing, according to body camera footage provided to McClatchy News by the St. Petersburg Police Department.

Then she seemed to change her mind, the video shows.

“I’ve decided that you’re going to actually go to jail today,” Gaddis is seen telling Sanchez-Mayen minutes later.

Gaddis “wanted to teach him a lesson,” one of Sanchez-Mayen’s attorneys, Thomas Scolaro, told McClatchy News on March 19.

“Sanchez-Mayen was minding his own business … not bothering anybody,” Scolaro said.

Shortly afterward, Officer Michael Thacker arrived to take Sanchez-Mayen to the Pinellas County Jail, according to the complaint.

Thacker restrained Sanchez-Mayen by wrapping a chain around his stomach and placing his hands in handcuffs, which were secured to the chain, the body camera footage shows.

“You can see in the video he is not disobeying the officers, he is completely compliant. … He’s doing absolutely nothing,” Scolaro said of Sanchez-Mayen.

Thacker placed Sanchez-Mayen, alone, in the back compartment of the prisoner transport van that lacked any seat belts, leaving him “chained to himself so that he was unable to protect his body,” the complaint says.

The officer is accused of driving “aggressively” at a high speed before coming to an abrupt stop “without warning” for “an alleged red traffic light,” according to the complaint.

As he did, Sanchez-Mayen’s head slammed into a metal divider that separated the compartment he was in from the rest of the van, the complaint says.

Sanchez-Mayen broke his neck and became unconscious, Scolaro said. Despite this, Thacker kept driving, the lawsuit says.

Sanchez-Mayen is suing the city of St. Petersburg, Thacker and Gaddis, the complaint shows.

The St. Petersburg Police Department told McClatchy News on March 19 that it “denies the claims and trusts in the judicial process.”

The city didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on March 19.

“Heriberto’s constitutional rights were violated from the moment Gaddis took him into custody,” attorney Dan Faherty, who also represents Sanchez-Mayen, told McClatchy News.

Gaddis and Thacker still work for the city’s police department, spokeswoman Yolanda Fernandez told McClatchy News.

Officer drags his ‘limp body,’ the lawsuit says

When Thacker heard the sound of Sanchez-Mayen hitting his head inside the police van, he tried to check a live video feed and noticed it was off, then switched it on, according to the lawsuit.

Footage provided to McClatchy News by police shows Sanchez-Mayen lying face down on the floor of the van.

After arriving at the jail, Thacker is seen trying to rouse him, telling him to “wake up.”

Then he grabs him by the ankles and pulls him out of the van, continuing to tell him to “wake up,” the video shows.

Before medical personnel responded to Sanchez-Mayen, who remained unconscious, Thacker had dragged his “limp body across the concrete ground,” the lawsuit says.

Charges are dropped

Sanchez-Mayen’s sister, Elsa Hernandez, drove 18 hours from Pennsylvania to Florida after police called her about him, Scolaro said.

Initially, police told her Sanchez-Mayen had fallen on June 8, according to Scolaro.

After that day, Sanchez-Mayen was prosecuted on a criminal trespassing charge, then the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Pinellas County dismissed the case against him on Feb. 22, the lawsuit says.

When Gaddis found Sanchez-Mayen asleep on public land, the property did not have “‘no trespassing’ signs at the corners of the boundaries of the land, nor does it have signs placed not more than 500 feet along the boundaries of the land,” the court’s order says.

“I cannot think of anything worse than trying to prosecute a paraplegic legless man when the original offending arrest was illegal,” Scolaro said.

Now, because of his injuries, Sanchez-Mayen is at a nursing home in Pennsylvania, according to Scolaro.

He’ll most likely live there “for the rest of his life,” as “he is unable to work and unable to take care of himself,” Elsa Hernandez told the Tampa Bay Times.

“Before this incident, Heriberto was a kind, happy man who made friends everywhere he went,” she told the outlet.

Faherty told McClatchy News that “the only thing that should have happened (on June 8), if anything, was Gaddis asking him to leave and watching him walk away down the sidewalk.”

Sanchez-Mayen’s lawsuit seeks to recover more than $75,000 in damages. He is suing on several causes of action, including a deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs, Thacker’s use of excessive force and the false arrest by Gaddis.

“Unless we are willing to hold those accountable that violate and infringe those rights” what happened to Sanchez-Mayen could happen to “any one of us at any day,” Scolaro said.

“Being homeless is not a crime,” he added. “It shouldn’t be a crime. It shouldn’t be penalized. … We should offer a helping hand to our brothers and our sisters in times of need.”

“We as a society are only as good as how we treat the most vulnerable,” Scolaro said.

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