The officers claim the young teen was uncooperative and in response, they slammed her to the ground and according to the victim, one officer placed his hand around her throat. She was handcuffed and taken to jail. For those who have not seen the video I encourage you to watch and judge for yourself.

“The officer’s identity is being withheld as part of the investigation,” we are told. It is a line we read and hear over, and over again.

Rialto Police Chief Mark Kling came out of retirement in December 2017 to “clean up” the Rialto Police Department, so to speak, however this incident and others since his return have left some to wonder whether he forgot to bring a broom.

In the meantime, although two officers were involved in the aggressive takedown of the teen, only one officer has been suspended—with pay, of course. I guess the second officer who clearly participated in the aggressive handling and arrest of the young girl for some reason it appears his actions were not deemed brutal enough to warrant a suspension–even with pay. Will he even be investigated?

Kling has offered an apology in what appears to be a proactive effort to temper a rising storm. “We apologize to the juvenile’s family regarding these unfortunate circumstances. At a time when our police department strives to build community relationships, we certainly fell short in this encounter…We look forward to building rapport with this family now and in the future.”

Certainly an apology is a good start but it falls far short of the kind of systemic change this community must demand as a way to put an end to the ongoing maltreatment of people of color by local police.

I do not know Chief Kling and can only take him at his word but what I do know is that his words do little to assuage the physical and emotional damage his officers have inflicted on this child, her family and the broader community.

The aggressive and terrorizing handling of this young girl is no aberration. Sadly, it did not shock us. It did not catch us off guard but it hurt just the same to witness another of our daughters treated so violently. It makes us angry that in the 21st century we are still fighting to protect our children from the viciousness of those who do not see our children as children.

But then again, this is America, the land where the criminalization of Black girls has been a reoccurring experience for us since slavery and has manifested itself again and again in city, county, state and federal sponsored violence and dehumanization, something fostered on Black women and girls with the same level of intensity as is placed on Black men and boys. Were this not true, then officers like those involved in this incident would not have felt so free to act with such violence, with such confidence and sense of impunity against a young Black girl.

There is more going on in Rialto

As this case garners well-deserved national attention, we should not lose sight of the fact that this is not the only incident of concern involving the Rialto police.

This incident comes on the heels of a January 20 press conference by the family of 23-year-old. Cristopher Valadez who was shot and killed by Rialto police October 22, 2021. Valadez was unarmed.

As the family’s attorney explained, “Cristopher Valadez was shot multiple times by Rialto Police officer Michael Babineaux when he was attempting to drive away. He was not posing any threat of death to anyone as officer Babineaux opened fire on him.”

This case caught my attention not only because it involved another young man of color where officers acted as judge, jury and executioner, for several reasons but two in particular. Firstly, because the circumstances were somewhat similar to the Minnesota case that resulted in the death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright by officer Kimberly Potter who was found guilty of two counts of manslaughter for shooting him to death. Potter pulled Wright over for having an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. Like Valadez, Wright also tried to leave the scene and was killed when Porter said she accidentally pulled her revolver instead of her taser. Wright was unarmed.

Another point that resonated with me about Valadez’s death is because he was shot by the same officer, Michael Babineaux, who was responsible for shooting another unarmed man in a case I covered two years ago. Babineaux previously shot 29-year-old Lawrence Bender who had tried to use a cigarette lighter in a tow truck to light his cigarette. At the time this occurred the tow truck driver was preparing an impounded vehicle for towing. Babineaux was on site observing the tow driver when Bender wandered onto the scene.

Babineaux shot Bender twice. Fortunately, Bender did not die but was hospitalized for two weeks. There are two videos on the internet of what occurred, one a highly edited version posted by the Rialto Police and a fuller version of the incident is available here.

When Babineaux shot Bender in June 2019, he was a rookie cop, on the job less than six months—he was never suspended. Now, having been on the job less than three years, Babineaux has used deadly force for the second time—resulting in the death of Cristopher Valadez.

A 2015 review of high-profile police shootings across the country showed officers involved in many of these incidents had a few things in common—they were primarily white, a number had disciplinary records, and many were under the age of 30.

And, we also know the problem runs even deeper in the criminal justice system than inexperienced officers and/or police with strong biases against people of color. Exactly how deep? We witnessed a classic example with the New Jersey incident recently where police, breaking up two fighting teens, treated the white kid with gentleness and left him sitting unattended as they tackled the Black teen, handcuffed, and held him in custody. It is obvious that his Black skin made him guilty, how else can you explain the difference in treatment by the officers? The white kid was older, larger and on top of the Black kid when the police arrived on the scene.

As local police in communities across the country continue to treat Black and other people of color as if the uprising of 2020 never happened, it was even more alarming last week to watch Judge Regina Chu sympathize and opine over how remorseful officer Kimberly Potter was for having murdered Daunte Wright. The judge praised Potter for being a great citizen and for her long police career. She talked about all the letters of support Potter received. On and on the judge went singing Potter’s praises, never mind the fact that as Wright lay dying or dead in the street after Potter shot him, all she could do was wail about what was going to happen to her as she implored fellow officers on the scene to call her union representative. She never even bothered to check for Wright’s pulse.

It was heart wrenching to see the officer get a two-year sentence…far below the minimum subscribed by law based on her 1st and 2nd degree manslaughter convictions. With the time she’s already served, Potter will spend less than two years in jail and is only being charged court fees of just over $1,000. This is the value placed on the life of a young Black man in America today. Records show the average price of a slave in 1860 was $800—showing how little Black lives continues to be worth in this nation.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.

S.E. Williams | Contributed

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A woman who pulled off a road to change drivers during a trip with her father and three young children was knocked unconscious and arrested by two Northern California sheriff’s deputies, who then lied about the encounter to responding paramedics and on official reports, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Body cameras worn by the deputies with the Solano County Sheriff’s Office recorded them pulling guns on Nakia Porter before slamming her to the pavement while handcuffing her along a rural road in the town of Dixon on the night of Aug. 6, 2020. Porter’s father, Joe Powell, was also placed in handcuffs and briefly detained.

Porter was jailed overnight on suspicion of resisting arrest, but never charged. She said the ordeal was confusing and dehumanizing.

“I was doing my best to do everything right, giving no reason to be treated like this,” said Porter, 33, who is Black.

The lawsuit brought by attorney Yasin Almadani accuses the deputies of violating state and federal civil rights statutes by engaging in “unlawful seizure, assault and excessive force.”

“Thankfully, the video evidence contradicted the fabricated facts,” Almadani said. “So what occurred here, we believe, was a racially motivated beating and terrorizing of a Black family.”

Solano County sheriff’s officials couldn’t immediately comment because the department hadn’t received a copy of the complaint by Wednesday afternoon, Sgt. Christine Castillo said in an email.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento asks a judge to order a jury trial for the arresting deputies, Dalton McCampbell and Lisa McDowell, and seeks unspecified damages.

The events unfolded as Porter and her 61-year-old father were making the 100-mile (160-kilometer) drive home to Orangevale, northeast of Sacramento, after a family trip to Oakland. Her two daughters, ages 3 and 6, and her 4-year-old niece were in the back seat. Porter is a software engineer, and her father, who’s retired, worked in computer networking.

Porter was behind the wheel when they stopped along an empty road in Dixon. The deputies’ squad car pulled up behind them with lights flashing. Porter already was out of the car and explained that they were just switching drivers and would be on their way, according to the court filing.

The deputies said they noticed the car had mismatched license plates — a California plate on the back of the car, and one from Maryland on the front.

“However, the deputies had called in the rear license plate to their dispatch and knew that it matched the description of the car and that there was no report of the car being stolen,” the filing states.

McCampbell, who had his gun drawn, ordered Porter back to the driver’s side, and he and his partner moved to detain her, according to edited bodycam footage acquired by Almadani and provided to The Associated Press. Almadani acquired more than 18 minutes of raw footage through a California Public Records Act request, and edited it down to just under 10 minutes.

“For those that are listening, I am not resisting,” Porter said into the deputies’ cameras. “You are not reading me my rights.”

The deputies pushed Porter against the squad car and then to the pavement while trying to handcuff her.

“Put your hands behind your back. Get on your stomach,” McCampbell shouted.

The footage gets very shaky, and it’s hard to see whether Porter is resisting. Porter and the court filing allege the deputies punched her in the head and the stomach, kneeled on her back and pulled her hair. She said she passed out seconds after the deputies closed the handcuffs.

“I think she’s out,” McCambell said on the video.

Porter, who is 5-foot-2 (1.6 meters) and 125 pounds (57 kilograms), said she was dragged unconscious to the back of the squad car, where she came to about five minutes later.

When paramedics arrived, McCampbell is heard saying Porter fought them, was knocked out for about 20 seconds and was able to walk herself to the squad car. McDowell estimates to the paramedics that Porter was unconscious for about five seconds.

Porter requested she be transported to a hospital, according to the lawsuit.

“Deputies McCampbell and McDowell denied the request, continuing to lie to the paramedics by minimizing the assault and the injuries they had inflicted on Ms. Porter,” the court filing said.

The lawsuit accuses the deputies of lying on their arrest reports about Porter fighting them and the length of time she was unconscious. Contact information for McCampbell and McDowell could not be found.

The suit also names a superior officer who signed off on the reports.

Cedric Alexander, a police use-of-force expert, was troubled by the video. He wondered why the deputies seemed to rush to detain Porter and Powell without first taking actions to de-escalate the situation, especially with three young kids in the car.

“What’s concerning here is the use of force,” said Alexander, a former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. “There needs to be a full investigation conducted outside of the sheriff’s department, preferably by a district attorney’s office.”

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