Trial begins for Petaluma teen charged in confrontation with police

Testimony began Monday in the trial of a Petaluma teenager who was charged with resisting arrest after a drunken, videotaped confrontation with a deputy that ended with her being slammed to the ground.

Gabbi Lemos, 19, suffered facial bruising in the June 2015 incident outside her family’s Liberty Road home. She is suing Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Marcus Holton in a separate civil proceeding alleging police brutality.

The resisting arrest charge sparked allegations of vindictive prosecution. If the nine-woman, three-man jury finds Lemos guilty of the single misdemeanor count, she will be barred from pursuing the federal case and any monetary damages.

Holton, a 21-year law enforcement veteran, was first on the witness stand. He described pulling up to the rural house about 11 p.m. and hearing people arguing outside.

Suspecting a possible domestic dispute, he tried to question Lemos’ sister, who was sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup parked in front of the house. She appeared to be drunk, he said. When he opened the door to talk with her, Lemos stepped in between them, bumping into him, he said.

“She smashed right into me,” Holton said. The deputy turned his focus on Lemos, ordering her to turn around so he could put handcuffs on her. But she moved behind her mother, Michelle Lemos, and another sister, preventing him from getting near her. Holton said the three women shielded her and yelled at him as he tried to calm them and explain why he was there.

At one point, Michelle Lemos told Gabbi Lemos to go into the house, Holton said. As she walked by him, he grabbed one of her hands and she struggled to get away, he said.

That’s when he put an arm around her neck and took her to the ground, he said. As the deputy, described as 5-foot-10, 215 pounds, sat on the teen’s back, the mother grabbed him by the collar and kicked him, landing blows on his face and shoulder, he said.

“I was trying to do two things at once,” Holton said. “I was trying to arrest Gabrielle and protect myself from assault.”

Another deputy called to assist in the arrest pulled Michelle Lemos away. She was also charged with resisting arrest but was not immediately booked into the jail.

Later, under questioning at Petaluma Valley Hospital, where Gabbi Lemos was treated and released, the teenager said her sister Karli had been drinking and was in an argument with her boyfriend when Holton arrived, the deputy said.

Prosecutor Jenica Leonard said in opening statements Holton was duty-bound to look into the situation. And she said he used the lowest level of force available to him to overcome Gabbi Lemos’ resistance.

Lemos’ lawyer, Izaak Schwaiger, acknowledged Lemos and her family members behaved badly.

But he said Holton responded with excessive force, tackling a teenager who had been standing barefoot and in her pajamas on her own driveway. Gabbi Lemos, who sat beside her mother near the defense table, cried as Schwaiger played a portion of the video in which she was thrown to the ground and can be heard screaming.

“This case isn’t about their behavior,” he said. “It’s about excessive force.”

The trial before Judge Gary Medvigy is expected to continue for at least one week. Both sides are expected to play the video, made with Holton’s body-worn camera. An audio recording of a jail phone call in which Gabbi Lemos uses a racial slur to describe Holton will not be admitted.

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.