Man who won $1.3 million settlement against Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office accuses agency of ‘setup’ in Feb. 9 traffic stop

Update: The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 16 released 41 minutes of video on the 56-minute Feb. 9 traffic stop. Sheriff Eddie Engram called driver Jason Anglero-Wyrick’s claims of harassment and retaliation “patently false.” SEE ORIGINAL Feb. 15 STORY BELOW

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Five weeks after settling a federal civil rights lawsuit against Sonoma County and two sheriff’s deputies for $1.35 million, Jason Anglero-Wyrick was driving out of the county for good when a sheriff’s deputy pulled him over and detained him.

He says it was a vindictive parting shot.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office says it was just a coincidence.

The two sides agree on these facts, however: On the evening of Feb. 9, a deputy pulled over Anglero-Wyrick and his wife, Naustachia Green, on River Road in Fulton, just north of Santa Rosa.

The 56-minute stop involved several deputies and resulted in Anglero-Wyrick being taken into custody — in handcuffs, he said — and then treated by paramedics for a panic attack before he was released with a ticket for a traffic violation and driving on a suspended license.

In the post-George Floyd era when seemingly every police stop is potentially in the spotlight, the case illustrates the depth of distrust between minority communities — Anglero-Wyrick is Black — and a sheriff’s office and county that have paid out millions of dollars to settle wrongful-death and excessive-force claims in the past five years.

Floyd’s 2020 death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers spurred a nationwide reckoning with police brutality, fueling new calls for transparency and accountability.

“I honestly felt like it was the biggest setup and ambush of my life and that they were going to kill me right then,” said Anglero-Wyrick.

Sheriff’s officials say they pulled Anglero-Wyrick over for an unsafe lane change, and that he and his wife became agitated and were obstructing traffic on a busy section of River Road near Fulton Road at rush hour.

The deputy “did not know the driver was Mr. Anglero-Wyrick” at the time of the stop, a statement issued by the department said.

Sheriff’s officials say the department has body-worn video camera footage from the incident that supports their version of events. However, they refused to immediately release it on the record — which would make it an official or attributable statement — even though there is no legal prohibition against doing so.

Sheriff Eddie Engram was unavailable for an interview Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday about the traffic stop and settlement with Anglero-Wyrick. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman said he was attending a training event Wednesday.

Izaak Schwaiger, Anglero-Wyrick’s attorney, called the Feb. 9 traffic stop a “footnote to Jason’s case.” He was referencing an excessive force suit filed in 2021 after the April 4, 2020, encounter outside his Graton home, when he was stunned with a Taser by one deputy and mauled by sheriff’s dog that ignored another deputy’s commands to let go.

The 90-second attack left him with long-term injuries that required multiple surgeries. After initially charging him with resisting arrest, prosecutors dropped their case, citing insufficient evidence.

The traffic stop last Thursday came a day before the first news reports last week about his settlement.

According to Anglero-Wyrick, he and Green were driving in separate vehicles through Fulton on River Road before 6 p.m. Anglero-Wyrick was in a car leading Green who was following in a U-Haul box truck.

Near the intersection with Fulton Road, Anglero-Wyrick said he saw flashing police lights appear behind the U-Haul.

Both vehicles pulled over. Thinking the officer was pulling over his wife, Anglero-Wyrick said he got out of the car to tell the officer they were traveling together.

Anglero-Wyrick said the officer then had both Anglero-Wyrick and Green stand to the side and asked Anglero-Wyrick his name, which he provided. Anglero-Wyrick said the officer asked for his name multiple times over the next minutes but did not write it down or radio it in.

The officer declined Anglero-Wyrick’s request to get his cellphone from his vehicle to record the incident and call his daughters, and informed Anglero-Wyrick and Green they were being detained but did not specify why, Anglero-Wyrick said.

That’s when Anglero-Wyrick said he and Green began seeking help from passing motorists — asking them to stop and record what was happening, he said.

After 15 minutes had passed without any progress in the traffic stop, Anglero-Wyrick said he tried to get back in his car, but the officer stopped him, reaching for his gun holster and unsnapping it, he said.

“He's not writing a ticket. He’s not gathering information. He’s not getting Naustachia’s driver's license. He’s not asking for registration or insurance,” Anglero-Wyrick said. “He's literally just standing there with us.”

Within moments, six police vehicles arrived and officers put Anglero-Wyrick in handcuffs and drove him a short distance down River Road, away from his wife, Anglero-Wyrick said. There, left seated in the back of the patrol car, the panic attack came on, including chest pains, he said.

Paramedics were summoned to provide care, he said.

After they were separated, officers told Green that her husband was going to jail, Anglero-Wyrick said.

A photo of Anglero-Wyrick’s citation for driving with a suspended license shows the handwritten words “in custody” were crossed out.

When he was released, Anglero-Wyrick said he was left to walk down River Road in the dark to meet his wife at the park-and-ride parking lot on River Road. One of the officers told him they were being lenient, he said.

“If it was an illegal turn, like I super apologize, but it definitely wasn't needed to go to what extent it went to,” Anglero-Wyrick.

A four-paragraph summary provided Tuesday to The Press Democrat by the Sheriff’s Office after repeated requests for comment said the deputy who initiated the 5:51 p.m. traffic stop was acting as a Windsor police officer — the town employs the Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement services.

The deputy pulled Anglero-Wyrick over for “unsafe driving behavior” and called for backup when Anglero-Wyrick — described as “the driver” at the start of the summary — got out of the car after being pulled over.

The summary described Anglero-Wyrick as “agitated and behaving aggressively.”

“At one point, both drivers walked into traffic on River Road and yelled at passing cars,” the summary said.

The summary said additional deputies arrived and detained Anglero-Wyrick, who “made a medical complaint” several minutes later, at which point deputies called for emergency medical personnel, who evaluated Anglero-Wyrick at the scene.

“Anglero-Wyrick was not driven down the road,” Deputy Rob Dillion, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, said in an email. “The patrol vehicle he was sitting in was moved off of the roadway for the safety of everyone involved so it didn’t create a traffic hazard.”

Anglero-Wyrick was cited for driving on a suspended license stemming from a past DUI and then released.

The incident ended at 6:47 p.m., the summary said. It included no mention of Anglero-Wyrick being detained in handcuffs, being separated from his wife, or how the two were reunited.

Schwaiger, Anglero-Wyrick’s attorney, who has won a string of high-profile civil rights settlements against the Sheriff’s Office, said he is “quite positive” Thursday’s events were harassment.

“It’s either harassment, or trying to find something to discredit this guy, or really an overreaction to a lane-change infraction,” Schwaiger said.

Sheriff’s officials offered The Press Democrat an opportunity to view the body worn camera footage off the record, meaning none of the material could be directly cited or described in the newspaper’s reporting. The Press Democrat declined the offer and reiterated its standing request for the footage to be publicly released.

Dillion said it takes significant staff time to redact videos, and if the department released footage in this case, it would be besieged with requests for videos in other cases.

“We’re a law enforcement agency, not a video-release agency,” he said Wednesday.

That’s bad public policy, said Richard A. Green, The Press Democrat’s executive editor.

“At a time when the public demands transparency and openness from government agencies, especially those in law enforcement, we struggle to understand why Sheriff Engram’s office is refusing to share this video on the record,” Green said.

“We have no interest in viewing something that should be shared with the public but then not be able to tell readers what we saw. The sheriff is evading the public’s purview, and that’s not right. We issue this challenge: Release the video you want us to review privately to the public. Strong allegations are being made. Let the public decide.”

Dillion, who said he had viewed “a couple minutes” of the footage, said it offers “a different perspective.”

“There are two sides to every story,” he said.

While California law doesn’t require the department to release the video, it doesn’t prevent them from doing so in this case, said David Loy, legal director at The First Amendment Coalition. The San Rafael-based nonprofit specializes in public records law.

“If they’re going to share it, they should share it,” Loy said.

Robert Phillips, a retired San Diego police officer and former Southern California prosecutor, said there is no designated number of responding officers considered appropriate for routine traffic stops. However, those types of encounters generally involve one officer unless matters escalate and there’s need for assistance.

“But absent something like that happening, other officers are generally expected to be off patrolling other parts of the city/county,” said Phillips, who contributes to a Santa Rosa-based website that specializes in legal updates on law enforcement policy and court rulings.

Traffic stops can take place when an officer has reasonable suspicion of an offense. An officer will gauge an area to determine where it’s appropriate to perform a stop, but will at times need to do it wherever it’s possible.

In some cases, the officer will stop at an angle to provide a shield from traffic.

The duration of traffic stops is based on whatever is considered reasonable in each case, Phillips said. A routine stop may last around 10 to 12 minutes, but it could be extended if there’s evidence of other criminal activity.

An officer isn’t legally required to explain why a driver is stopped, although Phillips suggests they do so in order to ease tension.

“My advice to cops has always been to be polite and explain the reasons for the stop (or the use of handcuffs), although often that must await until the situation is under control,” Phillips said.

“My advice to civilians is to stay calm even if they feel the officer is out of line, cooperate with the officer’s request even if you don’t agree with them. And then if you feel wronged, file a formal complaint after the fact.”

During the Feb. 9 stop, Anglero-Wyrick said he tried to stay calm.

“All I could do was to not be my worst enemy and not give them the bullet to literally shoot me,” Anglero-Wyrick said.

Supervisor Chris Coursey, chair of the Board of Supervisors, spoke Tuesday with a Press Democrat reporter before the Sheriff Office released its summary of the traffic stop. He said he did not feel he could comment without knowing more.

Regarding the county’s settlement with Anglero-Wyrick, Coursey said the Sheriff’s Office has been “criticized fairly” for the number of use of force incidents resulting in costly lawsuits.

“The most important part of it is that we aren’t hurting citizens,” Coursey said.

“The financial implications are significant also,” he added.

Schwaiger said he had not filed a formal complaint and did not plan to sue over the stop.

Anglero-Wyrick said Thursday’s incident is not something he will forget.

“I will not come back to Sonoma County,” Anglero-Wyrick said. “I will not enter into that county. They’ll have to drag me into that county.”

Press Democrat reporter Colin Atagi contributed to this story.

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.