Highway 101 stop prompts federal lawsuit against Rohnert Park police
A Texas man who said he was pulled over on Highway 101 by unidentified officers who took his marijuana during a 2017 traffic stop near the Mendocino- Sonoma county line has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Rohnert Park, claiming one of its officers abused his authority by committing theft, along with other crimes.
The plaintiff, Ezekial Flatten, a former school district police officer from San Antonio, has accused Rohnert Park Officer Joseph Huffaker and the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians' then-police chief Steven Hobb of pulling him over and detaining him without legal justification on Dec. 5, 2017.
“What they were doing on the side of the road when they robbed me, it was illegal,” said Flatten, who made his allegations public earlier this year, first in complaints to Mendocino County authorities and then in accounts shared with several media outlets.
He contends he acquired the cannabis lawfully, with a medical marijuana recommendation, from a Humboldt County farmer.
Flatten, who goes by Zeke, spurred other Highway 101 motorists to step forward with allegations of being wronged by Rohnert Park police when he began speaking out about his case.
His lawsuit names Huffaker and Hobb as the officers who took the 3 pounds of marijuana from his SUV. They did so in an illegal search without properly identifying themselves or documenting the stop, according to the 11-page complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
“It wasn't just sloppy police work,” Flatten said in an interview Friday. “They had no patches, no name tags, no badges.”
Huffaker, who remains a city employee, could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
Hobb, who now works for the Clearlake Police Department, said he did not know about the lawsuit and denied any involvement in Flatten's stop.
“I'm not going to comment on that because you guys don't tell the truth,” Hobb said. “I had nothing to do with that. It's malicious and I was not involved.”
Suit latest in series
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of civil rights cases brought against Rohnert Park's police force. It also names the Hopland tribe and former Rohnert Park Sgt. Brendon Jacy Tatum, who resigned in June under a cloud of allegations about his on-duty behavior.
Huffaker and Tatum, who often worked together, were taken off duty in April and placed on administrative leave when the city began its ongoing internal investigation into the role Flatten alleges they had in his traffic stop.
The internal probe was expanded in late July, one week after the sudden resignation of Rohnert Park's longtime director of public safety, Brian Masterson, and three weeks after The Press Democrat began publishing a series of stories examining the city's aggressive program to confiscate drugs and money by pulling over drivers on Highway 101, the main thoroughfare between the famed Emerald Triangle marijuana growing region and the urban Bay Area.
Many of the traffic stops occurred near the Sonoma- Mendocino border, 40 miles north of Rohnert Park.
After Masterson's announcement, the city hired former Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan, now an independent police auditor, to conduct a broad look into the drug-and-cash interception operations.
Since 2014, those missions have netted the city more than $2.4 million in cash and seized assets - more than any other law enforcement agency in Sonoma County.
Tatum played a lead role in the seizures and was decorated by the city for his actions. But Flatten, in his lawsuit, accused the former sergeant and Huffaker of conspiring “to expand the legitimate interdiction mission to one of personal financial gain.”
Air of mystery
They seized “thousands of pounds of marijuana and hundreds of thousands of currency without issuing receipts for the seizures, without making arrests for any crimes, and without any official report of the forfeitures being made,” the suit alleged.
Flatten's attorney, Izaak Schwaiger, said they intend to prove those far-reaching allegations in trial.
Tatum and his attorney did not respond to messages seeking comment Friday.
No law enforcement agency has publicly come forward to report its officers pulled Flatten over, lending the case an air of mystery. Flatten's seized marijuana was never publicly reported as booked evidence by Rohnert Park or any other law enforcement agency that normally patrols the area.
Flatten said one of the two men who stopped him said they were with the ATF. An official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told The Press Democrat earlier this year that no ATF officer was involved in a traffic stop with Flatten.
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