Sonoma County deputy should have been fired after 2020 incident, sheriff watchdog found

In the early morning hours of Oct. 31, 2020, a Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy pressed his gun in the back of a man’s head and back while responding to a report of fight and stabbing in Boyes Hot Springs.

As the man struggled to explain in broken English that he was the person who had called to alert authorities, the deputy told him to shut up and threatened to shoot him.

It’s all captured on body-worn camera footage.

“Hey you get on the f****** ground, I’m going to shoot you!” the deputy shouted. “Get on the ground or I’m going to f****** shoot you!”

The deputy, Jose Vega, made the same threat to several others at the scene, according to a 2021 Sheriff’s Office internal investigation.

His actions resulted in a suspension and pay cut, but according to Sonoma County’s law-enforcement watchdog agency, Vega should have been fired instead.

The independent civilian-led agency’s review was part of a report presented to the Sheriff’s Office in December 2022 and released to the Board of Supervisors in March. The report summarizes agency audits of 36 internal investigations dating to 2017.

The full audit in the Vega case was obtained by The Press Democrat April 27 through a public records request. It concurred with Sheriff’s Office findings that the deputy used more force than necessary, used language that was “discourteous and inappropriate,” and improperly deployed his weapons with “a Taser in one hand, a firearm in the other, and a flashlight under his armpit simultaneously.”

Earlier this year, on Feb. 9, Vega became the center of controversy again: He was the lead deputy in a disputed traffic stop involving a former Graton man who had recently won a $1.35 million settlement in an excessive force lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office.

While Vega’s conduct during the traffic stop was found by the Sheriff’s Office to be within policy, his mistreatment of the reporting person in the 2020 Sonoma Valley incident was flagrant, according to the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach, or IOLERO.

The agency, which has a handful of employees, is responsible for auditing the Sheriff’s Office’s internal investigations and for recommending, in certain cases, policy changes and personnel discipline. Its recommendations are not binding on the Sheriff’s Office.

In the October 2020 Sonoma Valley case, “the deputy appeared to be frustrated by this person responding to the deputy’s commands in broken English, and not complying with the deputy’s first command in English, despite him saying directly to the deputy that he did not speak English,” IOLERO’s report states.

“The deputy nonetheless threatened to shoot him, threatened to Tase him, and threatened to punch him, despite his continued cooperation with law enforcement at the scene, ” the report states.

“In the end, this man was detained for 18 minutes without being identified and was then released.”

A first for IOLERO

The case marks the first time IOLERO, founded in 2015, has recommended that a deputy be fired since it was granted broader authority by Sonoma County voters in 2020 to bolster oversight of the Sheriff’s Office.

For IOLERO, that included greater investigative power and the ability to recommend discipline for Sheriff’s Office employees who are the subject of a citizen complaint and internal investigation.

Vega’s case was one of four internal investigations in which IOLERO faulted the Sheriff’s Office inquiries or concluded sheriff’s officials were too lenient in their discipline.

The other cases involved an improper relationship with a confidential informant; excessive force by a jail deputy on an inmate; and a dispatcher sharing inaccurate information.

The Vega case was the most serious.

According to the report, he was one of two deputies who responded to the 1:19 a.m. report of a stabbing. He arrived before at least four other deputies.

Body-camera footage shows Vega and his partner, Deputy Samuel Camarena, encountering two people before rushing to a nearby area. There, they and a third deputy worked together to take someone in custody while other people watched nearby.

A suspect was arrested at the scene of the nonfatal stabbing, but four other people were detained by Vega and two other deputies.

At least one detainee was forced to lie on the ground without ever being told they could get up. Most of the people detained were never informed they were being released, according to the IOLERO report.

Body-camera footage shows Vega approaching a few people nearby. One, later identified as a 17-year-old, was lying on the ground, complying with deputies’ instructions — as Vega threatened to shoot him if he moved.

“I haven’t done anything officer, I’m sorry, I haven’t done anything,” he said to Vega. “Cuff me. Take me anywhere. I’m sorry, I haven’t done anything.”

“I’m the only thing my mom’s got,” he said a few moments later. “Just please don’t kill me, bro.”

Vega put him in handcuffs and left him on the ground before leaving to pursue another man who had walked away.

Records from the internal investigation indicated Vega carried his flashlight in his armpit with a gun and Taser in each hand while approaching that man, who did not speak English well.

Body-camera footage shows Vega threatening to shoot and stun the man with his Taser as the man who explained it was he who reported the fight. After lying on the ground at Vega’s instruction, Vega pressed his gun against the man’s head and back.

The man whimpered.

“Do you under f****** understand me?” Vega yelled.

Off camera, a woman shouted to Vega that the man had called authorities about the fight. At that point, Vega and another deputy realized that with the other people they’d detained, they didn’t have handcuffs for the man lying on the ground.

“You try to run, I’m going to f****** punch you in the face so f****** hard, you understand me?” Vega told the man while escorting him back to where the other detainees were being held.

Footage from other deputies showed the 17-year-old cooperating with deputies, even going so far as to ask to be searched so another deputy could relay that he was cooperating and did not have weapons.

The teenager spoke calmly with other deputies, and repeatedly asked why he was being detained and if he could call his mom.

‘Incident raised alarms’

Vega was the only deputy disciplined.

The Sheriff’s Office suspended him for two weeks without pay and docked his pay 5% for six months. He was also required to take additional training, including conflict de-escalation measures.

Sheriff Eddie Engram told The Press Democrat “the entire incident raised alarms,” triggering the department’s internal investigation.

Though he said Vega’s suspension was appropriate, Engram said he could not comment on IOLERO’s conclusion that Vega should have been fired because he was not involved in the disciplinary decision at the time.

His predecessor, Sheriff Mark Essick, was in office, and Engram was assistant sheriff overseeing the jail division.

Engram took office in January 2023 after being elected last June. The Sheriff’s Office completed its internal investigation in early 2021.

“I was not involved in those discussions,” Engram said in an April interview. “So there may have been mitigating factors as to why he was not terminated. But I wasn't privy to those mitigating factors.”

On Thursday afternoon, hours after this story was published online, Engram publicly acknowledged the case in a 90-second video posted to the Sheriff’s Office’s Youtube and Facebook accounts.

“As your sheriff I will do my best to be transparent and communicate with you when we do well and when we make mistakes,” he said in the video. “I support my deputies, but I’m also not afraid too acknowledge when we fall short of expectations.“

Vega joined the Sheriff’s Office in 2019, according to the internal investigation. He is currently a patrol deputy.

He declined to comment via the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.

Vega’s name is included in the IOLERO audit and the Sheriff’s Office internal investigation records posted on the department website to comply with state law governing cases of serious use of force, sexual assault and other alleged officer misconduct.

Disciplinary recommendation delayed

John Alden, who took over as director of the county watchdog agency in September, declined to comment at length on the Vega case, saying the report and audit speak for themselves.

IOLERO has struggled with a backlog of audits over recent years, and only just recently cleared years of pending reviews.

If not for the backlog, the agency’s conclusion regarding Vega could have been more timely and influenced any disciplinary action, said Alden.

Nonetheless, Alden said, “it would ultimately be up to the Sheriff to make that decision.”

The Sheriff’s Office internal investigation concluded it was unnecessary for Vega to arm himself with a gun and Taser at once given the man was cooperative and posed no threat.

Vega was admonished for pressing his gun against the man, threatening to shoot others and telling people to shut up when they attempted to communicate.

“Moments in law enforcement do exist where cursing at subjects and/or threatening subjects with force, to include deadly force, are reasonable and justified,” internal investigators wrote in their conclusion.

“However, in this overall instance, much of your conduct was out of line and unnecessary in assisting you in completing your duties.”

The internal investigation specifies Sheriff’s Office policy states deputies “should not” hold both weapons in their hands, as opposed to “shall not.”

Engram said changing the wording would be “problematic” because deputies may find themselves in situations where carrying both tools is appropriate.

“Use of force is really dynamic, and really depending on what the situation is,” the sheriff said.

“And so, we don't want to bind individual deputies’ hands and put them in the place of they're either going to be in danger, or someone else is going to be in danger, or you're going to be in violation of policy, if that makes sense.”

Internal investigators interviewed several deputies about the incident. One of them said he had seen Vega’s body-camera footage and said he would not have done what Vega did.

The internal investigation noted that Vega also took a jujitsu class as part of his own self-imposed remedy.

Roger Clark, a retired LA County Sheriff’s deputy and police procedures consultant, said departments must ask whether the officer can be retrained or should be fired following such incidents, and the officer’s history often is a factor in those discussions.

“My inclination would be, no, you’ve got to listen to the department, trust the department to make the right decision to bring him back to where he can be a good police officer,” Clark said.

He commanded a specialized unit called the North Regional Surveillance and Apprehension Team for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and has testified as an expert on issues including use of force, jail procedures and police procedures in several cases across the country including in Arizona, California, Texas and Florida.

Clark added that a “gun cannot be a tool of compliance.”

“Pointing a gun is akin to lethal force and you will not point a gun at anything that you are not willing to destroy,” he said.

“It’s only in the comic books and in the movies you see such a thing,” Clark said.

IOLERO findings

Vega never intended to harm anyone, but it appeared he was “accomplishing a legitimate purpose by wildly inappropriate means,” according to the audit.

It states that deadly force would have been allowed if Vega were protecting himself or others from injury or threat of death. It can also be used to arrest a fleeing suspect in a death or threat of injury.

“It is indisputable that neither of those circumstances existed,” IOLERO staff wrote in its audit of Vega’s investigation.

Auditors found Vega’s actions may have been motivated by fear that resulted from a call involving multiple people who may have been armed gang members.

He reacted by relying on his gun to motivate others to follow his orders ‒ an approach that was inappropriate, but understandable.

Reacting badly to fear could be remedied via training and experience and the audit notes Vega was hardly an “irredeemably bad person.”

IOLERO credits the Sheriff’s Office for disciplining Vega but states the agency could be liable for negligent retention if the deputy now injures or kills anyone.

“There is no question that (the Sheriff’s Office) has exposed itself to at least some increase in its potential liability if (Deputy) Vega should engage in similar misconduct in the future and someone is injured or killed as a result,” the audit states.

“It would therefore be very much in the department’s and the county’s interest to make extremely sure that does not happen.”

Disputed traffic stop

IOLERO’s report came one month after Vega conducted the Feb. 9, 2023, traffic stop on Jason Anglero-Wyrick, the former Graton man who five weeks earlier secured a $1.35 million settlement with Sonoma County in an excessive force lawsuit filed in 2021.

Vega’s name and badge number are included in Anglero-Wyrick’s ticket, which Anglero-Wyrick released to The Press Democrat.

In acknowledging Vega’s involvement in both incidents, Engram said his deputy was more calm during the February traffic stop compared to the 2020 incident.

He stressed disciplinary action is designed to modify someone’s behavior, not punish them.

“Maybe discipline worked,” he said.

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

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi