Former Graton man mauled by Sheriff’s K-9 wins $1.35 million settlement from Sonoma County

A former Graton resident mauled by a Sonoma County Sheriff’s K-9 three years ago won a $1.35 million settlement following a federal civil rights lawsuit against two sheriff’s deputies and the county.

Two sheriff’s deputies stunned Jason Anglero-Wyrick with a Taser and sicced a police dog named Vader on him April 4, 2020, after an unsubstantiated report that he had earlier that day pointed a gun at another person. No gun was ever found and charges were never filed against Anglero-Wyrick, who is Black.

The lawsuit, filed in 2021, said the two deputies used excessive force during the incident, which Anglero-Wyrick’s then-15-year-old daughter recorded on a cellphone. The settlement, first reported by KTVU on Friday, was reached Jan 6.

“It's definitely not justice,” Anglero-Wyrick, who was 35 when he was attacked, said Saturday of the settlement. “I don't want anyone to be mistaken, you know, ‘No justice, no peace.’ And I stand by that. However, for my daughters, I'd be extremely selfish not to take $1.3 million financial compensation.”

He said he is certain that his race played a role in what happened to him.

“Race and social status play a huge role with all law enforcement interactions,” he said. “It's not just me. If it was just me continuously being harassed by law enforcement to this day, then I would say that, ‘Okay, yeah, maybe there's some type of justice, and they just specifically targeted me for whatever reason.’ But it's not that. It's every day I turn the TV on, there's some other innocent person getting attacked, mauled by a dog or shot by a police officer or killed in custody.”

This week, Anglero-Wyrick and his family moved from Sonoma County to a location elsewhere in California that he declined to disclose.

“I got 40 acres and I changed the license plate on my truck to a mule because now I got 40 acres and a mule,” Anglero-Wyrick said, referring to the 1865 U.S. government order that all Black families freed from slavery after the Civil War be given 40 acres of land and lent a mule, a promise almost immediately broken. “But I'm still not free and it's still not justice.”

The cellphone video from the day he was attacked and subsequently released body-worn camera footage show him standing near his home with his arms raised above his head and his hands empty moments before Sheriff’s Deputy Nikko Miller fired an electro-shock weapon at him. Seconds later, Deputy Jeremy Jucutan, the K-9 handler, set Vader on him.

The attack, which the cellphone video showed lasted for 90 seconds, left him with long-term leg injuries that still require physical therapy, and he has not been able to return to work in the construction industry, Anglero-Wyrick said.

His attorney, Izaak Schwaiger, who has represented plaintiffs in 16 cases involving allegations of misconduct by law enforcement officers in Sonoma County, said the Anglero-Wyrick settlement was “what the case was worth.”

“Frankly, a jury could have awarded significantly more given the climate today, especially in light of recent events” involving the killing of a Black man, Tyre Nichols, by five Memphis police officers, Schwaiger said. “He’s a Black man in a predominantly white community who was brutalized by a bunch of white cops.”

Schwaiger said the person named Clyde who called 911 to report that Anglero-Wyrick had pointed a gun at him was at odds with him and that during the process of discovery it was learned that both deputies knew that Clyde had recanted his report before they arrived on the scene.

A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson could not be reached for comment late Saturday. County communications director Paul Gullixson could not be reached for comment.

KTVU reported Friday that the deputies involved in Anglero-Wyrick’s case, Jucutan and Miller, are still employed by the Sheriff’s Office.

Multimillion-dollar settlements stemming from excessive force claims against the Sheriff’s Office have led to skyrocketing liability insurance premiums for the department, The Press Democrat reported in September 2020. That year, the department faced an slated rate increase of 46%, representing a $2.7 million hike in annual insurance premiums, outpacing rate increases in other similar-sized California counties.

The county in April 2021 reached a record $3.8 million settlement with the family of David Ward, a Bloomfield man killed in 2019 by deputies who stunned him with a Taser, slammed his head into his car — which they believed was stolen — and restrained him with a now-banned neck hold.

Then-Sheriff Mark Essick moved to fire a deputy involved in that case, Charles Blount, but Blount retired before that process was completed. Blount was acquitted of manslaughter in February 2022.

Schwaiger currently represents the family of David Peláez-Chavez, a 36-year-old farmworker who in July 2022 was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy after two deputies had chased him through a rural area near Geyserville.

Peláez-Chavez was holding a hammer and a garden tiller when two deputies caught up to him and he appeared to be hunched over when he was shot, video footage captured on the deputies’ body cameras shows.

Officials have said Peláez-Chavez did not obey the deputies’ orders to drop what he carried and in his final moments picked up a rock and made a motion to throw it at the deputies. Others dispute that.

The family’s civil rights lawsuit alleges that Sonoma County’s poor supervision, training and disciplining of sheriff’s deputies and a “code of silence” around their use of force contributed to the fatal shooting.

Schwaiger said he believes Anglero-Wyrick’s settlement was the second largest for a law enforcement K-9 dog bite in state history.

Anglero-Wyrick said he doesn’t know whether the settlement will produce the kind of lasting changes at the Sheriff’s Office that he thinks are needed.

“The optimistic person in me wants to say, yes, it will. The realist knows that without political reform and change in voting and pressure from the public, it will never happen. So I would say, yes, it has the ability to change. However, it will not take place without it being forcefully required by the population,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jeremyhay