A Dip In Neighbor’s Pool Leads To Nightmare At Hands Of Oroville Police, Lawsuit Alleges

Just when you think, ok, there is no way that police can do worse than what we have already seen.

Last year on Sept. 1, as Butte County was in the midst of 100-plus-degree heat wave, Dana Marie James found her­self arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing after tak­ing a dip in a Chico homeowner’s pool.

James was arrest­ed by a deputy from the Butte County Sheriff’s Office who “observed that Ms. James was inco­her­ent, had an altered men­tal sta­tus and was pos­si­bly under the influ­ence of a con­trolled sub­stance,” accord­ing to a law­suit against anoth­er agency, the Oroville Police Department, filed in fed­er­al court Monday.

She was tak­en to jail in Oroville, with her shoes left behind, booked and then cit­ed and released just before 3 p.m.

“Ms. James dis­played obvi­ous signs and symp­toms of men­tal and phys­i­cal impair­ment at the time of her release from the jail and this is record­ed on jail video,” the suit filed by Rocklin attor­ney Robert Chalfant says. “Ms. James was not giv­en a bus pass so that she could return to her home in Chico, California, or pro­vid­ed shoes.

“Ms. James was sim­ply thrown out onto the streets of the city of Oroville.”

Then, accord­ing to the civ­il rights law­suit, the 52-year-old woman’s real trou­bles began, cul­mi­nat­ing with her being aban­doned in the mid­dle of the night in a remote area where she end­ed up being struck by a hit-and-run dri­ver. Chalfant says James suf­fered life-alter­ing injuries from the collision.

Acting Oroville Police Chief Bill LaGrone, reached on his cell­phone Monday, declined to com­ment on the law­suit, cit­ing pend­ing litigation.

But the suit accus­es the police of a “state cre­at­ed dan­ger,” delib­er­ate indif­fer­ence, neg­li­gence and oth­er claims stem­ming from what James’ lawyer describes as Oroville’s fail­ure to prop­er­ly train its officers.

Woman wasn’t medically cleared to return to jail

Six hours after James was first released, around 9 p.m., she was arrest­ed again, this time at a Home Depot by Oroville police Officer Robert Sasek, the suit says.

“During her arrest at the Home Depot, Ms. James was inco­her­ent and unable to care for her­self,” the suit says. “Ms. James was act­ing irra­tional­ly, had sig­nif­i­cant men­tal impair­ment includ­ing illog­i­cal and dis­or­ga­nized thoughts, and Officer Sasek believed that she was under the influ­ence of a con­trolled substance.”

Sasek took her to jail, but the intake nurse there would not allow her to be booked until she received med­ical clear­ance, the suit said.

That’s when Sasek drove James to Oroville Hospital, where he had her wait in his patrol car while he went inside, the suit says. He returned and then released her in the park­ing before leav­ing. He was called back to the hos­pi­tal when a hos­pi­tal secu­ri­ty guard called Sasek on his per­son­al cell­phone, the suit says.

“The secu­ri­ty guard informed Officer Sasek that Ms. James had been walk­ing around the exte­ri­or of the hos­pi­tal try­ing to open locked doors,” the suit says. “The secu­ri­ty guard fur­ther informed Officer Sasek that Ms. James was ‘out of con­trol’ and had ‘bar­ri­cad­ed’ her­self in a hos­pi­tal bathroom.”

By the time Sasek arrived, the secu­ri­ty guard had James back out in the park­ing lot, and Sasek was joined by Oroville police Sgt. Ali Khan, the suit says. Sasek then drove to a gas sta­tion with James, where he met Khan and an unnamed offi­cer, and “the three offi­cers dis­cussed a plan of action,” the suit says.

“All three offi­cers knew and dis­cussed that Ms. James had been reject­ed by the jail at book­ing because she had an urgent med­ical con­di­tion requir­ing eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment and need­ed to be ‘med­ical­ly cleared’ pri­or to being accept­ed into cus­tody at the jail,” the suit says.

‘Abandon’ at the dump, cop sped off

The unnamed offi­cer then sug­gest­ed they “take her out to a remote area on Neal Road at the Waste Facility and aban­don Ms. James at the dump,” accord­ing to the suit.

“Sergeant Ali Khan agreed with the plan and did not object or instruct his sub­or­di­nates to cease their unlaw­ful and improp­er con­duct even though he knew that plaintiff’s rights were being vio­lat­ed and had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­vene,” the suit says, adding that Khan “had an affir­ma­tive duty to stop the unlaw­ful con­duct of his sub­or­di­nates but failed to do so.”

Sasek then drove 15½ miles north of town to the Neal Road Recycling and Waste Facility, the suit says.

“While being trans­port­ed towards Chico, Ms. James asked, ‘Where are we going?’ and Officer Sasek respond­ed, ‘Don’t wor­ry about it’ and told her to ‘just shut up,’” the suit says.

At mid­night, Sasek dropped James off in com­plete dark­ness, the suit says, and when she asked where they were he respond­ed, “You will fig­ure it out, it’s not my problem.”

“Ms. James plead­ed with Officer Sasek to ‘take me home,’ pri­or to Officer Sasek get­ting back into his patrol vehi­cle and floor­ing the gas ped­al, which threw dirt and grav­el direct­ly at Ms. James,” the suit says. “Ms. James was now all alone on Neal Road. It was dark out and there were no streetlights.

“Ms. James had no phone, no water, no shoes, no flash­light and no idea where she was. Officer Sasek just drove away dis­card­ing her on Neal Road out­side of the dump at approx­i­mate­ly midnight.”

The offi­cers “treat­ed Ms. James as though she was garbage,” the suit says. “Their heart­less deci­sion to aban­don her at the dump would war­rant crim­i­nal charges if they had aban­doned a dog or cat.”

Hospitalized for 35 days after ordeal

After being left, James tried walk­ing along the shoul­der of the road back toward Oroville, the suit says, where “she was struck on her right side by a pass­ing vehi­cle and was sent fly­ing down an embank­ment into sev­er­al large boul­ders where she remained in and out of con­scious­ness and severe­ly injured for approx­i­mate­ly 10 hours.”

The vehi­cle that hit her didn’t stop, the suit says.

“At approx­i­mate­ly 9:00 a.m. on September 2 (the next day), Ms. James sum­moned the strength to crawl up the embank­ment where she had remained in and out of con­scious­ness all night and was seen by work­ers employed at the Franklin Construction yard,” the suit says. “They imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized the seri­ous­ness of her injuries, pro­vid­ed water and assis­tance and called 911.”

“Butte County Sheriff’s Department offi­cers arrived and insult­ed Ms. James by ask­ing if her boyfriend had beat­en her up,” the suit says. “The Butte County Sheriff’s Department failed to con­duct any inquiry into how Ms. James had arrived at that loca­tion or who was respon­si­ble for hit­ting her with their vehicle.”

This time, James was tak­en to anoth­er hos­pi­tal, Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where she spent sev­en days in inten­sive care and 35 total days in the hos­pi­tal, the suit says.

She endured mul­ti­ple surg­eries, devel­oped sep­sis and suf­fered an infec­tion on her right foot so deep she may lose those toes, the suit says.

“Based on the severe inter­nal injuries that Ms. James sus­tained, med­ical providers were forced to remove 30 to 40 per­cent of her colon, and approx­i­mate­ly two feet of her small intes­tine,” the suit says. “Ms. James has also been informed that due to the inter­nal injuries and removal of a por­tion of her small intes­tine and a por­tion of her colon, she will like­ly be required to wear a colosto­my bag for life.”

The suit also says that after Sasek left James at the dump, he “returned to his office the fol­low­ing day and com­plet­ed his arrest report for his arrest of Ms. James at the Oroville Home Depot and sub­mit­ted it to the Butte County District Attorney for prosecution.”(This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @Yahoonews)

NJ charges Patterson cop who shot wounded fleeing man in the back…