Sonoma County Sheriff Engram: Driver’s claims of harassment and retaliation in traffic stop ‘patently false’

Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram said Thursday that his deputies “did nothing wrong” while conducting a Feb. 9 traffic stop involving a man who last month reached a $1.3 million settlement with the county after being mauled by a sheriff’s dog in a 2020 arrest.

Engram’s statement was made in a video posted on the department’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon, a day after The Press Democrat published a story about the traffic stop involving Jason Anglero-Wyrick.

Engram criticized the story, calling it “a biased article that perpetuates a narrative that deputies mistreat people of color.”

“This narrative harms our community and discourages people of color to trust deputies and it tarnishes the good work the people of the Sheriff’s Office do every day,” he said in the video.

The Sheriff’s Office repeatedly rejected Press Democrat requests to publicly release body-worn camera footage of the 56-minute stop on River Road. On Thursday, however, the agency posted 41 minutes of the encounter on its Facebook page.

The video depicts an angry and frustrated Anglero-Wyrick and his wife, using profanity at times, repeatedly pleading for help from passing motorists on the busy road, and demanding to know why they were stopped.

The footage shows that deputies put Anglero-Wyrick in handcuffs and placed him in the back of a patrol car before taking him out of the car to allow for medical treatment during what he said was the onset of a panic attack.

The traffic stop ends when Anglero-Wyrick is released from custody with a citation for an unsafe lane change and driving on a suspended license.

Anglero-Wyrick, who is Black, told The Press Democrat he believed the traffic stop was retaliation for the settlement. The couple were in separate vehicles — Anglero-Wyrick in the front car, his wife trailing in a moving truck — on their way out of the county for good when the deputy pulled him over.

He called it a “setup” and said he had feared for his life.

Engram defended the department’s response in his short video statement.

“To be clear, our deputies did nothing wrong on this traffic stop,” he said.

Engram responded to Anglero-Wyrick’s claims of retaliation saying, “I pledge to hold my deputies accountable when they do something wrong. I will also protect them against false allegations and misconduct. These allegations of harassment and retaliation are patently false.”

The stop came five weeks after the settlement of Anglero-Wyrick’s 2021 excessive force lawsuit stemming from an encounter with sheriff’s deputies April 4, 2020, outside his Graton home.

He was stunned with a Taser by a deputy and mauled by a K-9 that ignored another deputy’s commands to release Anglero-Wyrick.

The 90-second attack left Anglero-Wyrick with long-term injuries that required multiple surgeries.

After initially charging him with resisting arrest in that case, prosecutors dropped the charges, citing insufficient evidence.

What the video shows

Sheriff’s officials said they pulled Anglero-Wyrick over at 5:51 p.m. 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.

Engram said in his statement that the deputy was out of service at the time and that his body-worn camera was not immediately activated.

The video depicts a frustrated and angry Anglero-Wyrick and his wife, Naustachia Green, standing along River Road with the deputy as rush-hour traffic goes by.

The three argue: Anglero-Wyrick and Green repeat the name “Jason Anglero” four times after the deputy repeatedly says he doesn’t have it. Between frustrated exchanges with the deputy, punctuated by profane language from Anglero-Wyrick and Green, the couple turn to the road calling for help from passing cars.

A few minutes later Anglero-Wyrick attempts to get back in his car, but as the deputy reacts, he steps towards the deputy, hands balled into fists saying, “You going to pull you’re f------ gun on me?”

Green puts her hands out to calm Anglero-Wyrick as the deputy steps back to create distance.

Asking the deputy to write the ticket and let them go, Green says, “you’re being a little b---- right now.”

Additional deputies arrive and Anglero-Wyrick and Green are detained separately. Anglero-Wyrick is left handcuffed in a vehicle.

Several minutes later, Anglero-Wyrick tells the deputy he is having chest pains and needs to get out.

Once outside the car, Anglero-Wyrick bends over, gasping and crying out. As he lies down on the ground, an officer tells him to bend his left leg to alleviate the pain.

Anglero-Wyrick lies still. Moments later, he is told he and his wife were detained because of their behavior. Anglero-Wyrick calls the deputy “a f------ liar.”

A deputy supervisor tells Anglero-Wyrick, “It seems like sometimes you have a history of maybe not listening to what law enforcement tells you to do, which is fine.”

“I also have a history of suing you for $1.3 million,” Anglero-Wyrick responds.

The exchange continues with the supervisor telling Anglero-Wyrick he is not “impervious to the law because you don’t want to listen.”

Another officer tells Anglero-Wyrick he rarely sees people get out of their car without being asked during a stop.

Later, deputies inform Anglero-Wyrick that his license was suspended in November. Anglero-Wyrick says he wouldn’t have been driving if he knew.

“You shouldn’t have been doing that,” the deputy says.

“I realize that,” Anglero-Wyrick responds.

The first deputy explains he didn’t write down Anglero-Wyrick’s information at the onset of the traffic stop because of his behavior.

“I didn’t want to move my attention to my pen and my notepad when you’re kinda, like, flexing up on me, right? You can see that’s an officer safety issue if I don’t have someone there watching me and I can’t let you go back into the car, right? Do you agree?”

Anglero-Wyrick replies, “I do, I do.”

Nearly an hour after the stop began, Anglero-Wyrick is taken out of handcuffs and advised he’s being cited for driving on a suspended license and making an unsafe turn.

Anglero-Wyrick signs a citation acknowledging deputies informed him of his license status and another deputy says, “Go with the flow if you get pulled over. I recommend it.”

To the first deputy, Anglero-Wyrick says, “I apologize for my actions, sir,” before shaking his hand and walking away as the video ends.

According to Sheriff’s Office records, the stop ended at 6:47 p.m.

Sheriff’s off-record offer

Engram, who took office last month, was unavailable for interviews about the traffic stop and settlement Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Deputy Rob Dillion, the department’s public information officer, did not respond to a follow-up email at noon Thursday, again seeking an interview with Engram.

Three hours later, the Sheriff’s Office posted Engram’s statement and the traffic stop footage on its Facebook page.

In his statement, Engram said his office had offered to allow The Press Democrat to view the traffic-stop footage. However, he failed to mention that his office had imposed ground rules that would have prevented the newspaper from reporting on the video’s contents.

The Press Democrat declined the offer and reiterated its request to the sheriff to publicly release the full record of the stop and provide all related body-camera footage and police dispatch communication.

The Press Democrat welcomed Engram’s decision to release the body-worn camera video, Executive Editor Richard A. Green said.

“We first asked his department to release it on Monday after these allegations surfaced,” Green said. “The public deserved to make its own decision about what happened.

“Instead, in a 17-minute phone conversation Wednesday with two Press Democrat editors and a reporter, the department’s public information officer offered to show us the video exclusively on an off-the-record basis. We were told we could not describe it, write about it or have it included in our reporting of the story. We rejected the offer. We said the video should be made available to everyone — not just to our journalists. That’s exactly what happened Thursday.”

Green added, “It’s important to point out these facts that Sheriff Engram omitted in his video. To paint our coverage as biased and perpetuating a narrative that deputies should not be trusted by people of color is not only inaccurate, but offensive. I have tremendous respect for all public employees, including those in law enforcement. But our obligation to the community is to report all facets of how deputies and others do their job and to fairly and responsibly investigate allegations of questionable policing. We did that in this instance and will continue to do so in the future.”

Staff writers Jennifer Sawhney, Paulina Pineda and Alana Minkler contributed reporting.

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

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