A Central Valley city is sued over excessive use of K-9 when a mother called for help
It was an evening in October 2020 when Yajaida Keys called 911 in Visalia because she needed help with her son, Jordan Gutierrez, now 22, who was having a mental health crisis.
Keys called police to help her take her son to the hospital to get treatment. But instead, Gutierrez, who is diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic with psychosis, ended up having his face chomped by a K-9 canine before being arrested.
The mother was threatened with arrest multiple times by an officer while she was trying to explain to police that her son needed medical attention, according to phone videos Keys took the day of the incident and a federal civil rights lawsuit filed late Monday night.
Keys told The Bee she ended up having to pay $25,000 to bail her son out of jail, and she had to do 25 hours of community service because she was charged with resisting arrest, even though she wasn’t arrested in the incident.
Keys’ second video shows she wasn’t arrested, but was rather interviewed by a fourth police officer who arrives at the scene and asks her to explain what happened.
“This is just a horrific event,” V. James DeSimone, one of the attorneys representing Keys and Gutierrez, told The Bee. “We would think that anyone who would look at the video would instantly see the abuse of the police dog was completely unnecessary, given that this was a mother’s cry for medical attention.”
Monday’s federal lawsuit comes on the heels of another federal suit against the Visalia Police Department filed in March over a K-9 mauling of a mentally disabled man. The officers involved in that case are not the same as those involved in Gutierrez’s case.
Visalia Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Mike Short told The Bee on Tuesday that officials were just made aware of the lawsuit, and he wasn’t immediately able to comment. Later on Tuesday, Short said none of the officers involved in Gutierrez’s case faced disciplinary action. Though, one of the officers who was at the scene retired, but Short said he couldn’t speak more on that.
In the previous lawsuit, Visalia police told The Bee the “department is continually evaluating policies and procedures which includes the canine policy.”
Short on Tuesday said no changes to policies came from the previous K-9 incident, but the police department is always looking to revamp its policies.
Keys and Gutierrez are named as plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit, which was filed against the city of Visalia, Visalia Police Chief Jason Salazar in his individual and official capacity, Lt. Ron Epp, Officer Ron Veteto, Officer Sean Schlebeihut and Officer Aaron Stocker, among others.
The suit makes several claims including unreasonable arrest and detention, excessive use of force, denial of adequate medical care, false arrest and imprisonment, assault and battery, and violation of Constitutional rights, among others.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages to be determined by a jury trial.
DeSimone says police claimed Gutierrez was trying to fight them and threw a garbage can at them. Though, he says, that’s “just a lie.” He said initially, Gutierrez was running around and he knocked over a few garbage cans.
The Bee wasn’t able to immediately access the officers’ bodycam footage. Short on Tuesday said the police department is not releasing bodycam footage at this time.
In the videos taken by Keys, Gutierrez can be seen standing near a vehicle with officers around him. Keys tells her son to put his phone down before an officer points a Taser at him.
When Keys tells the officer to put his Taser down as that was not necessary, the officer is heard telling her that it’s for his “own protection.”
The officer then proceeds to tell her: “If you don’t back up, I’m going to arrest you...Back up, back up, go all the way to that white car.”
When the K-9 starts biting her son’s face, Keys is heard screaming in the video, “Hey, hey, hey” and appears to run closer to the officers and her son. Her son is heard crying.
The officer tells Keys, “If you don’t back up, I’m going to arrest you. I told you multiple times.”
After Gutierrez is placed inside a patrol car, bleeding from his face, Keys asks police officers if they have mental health training. One officer responds: “Are you telling me a schizophrenic can’t hurt police?” according to the video and lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, when Keys spoke with a 911 dispatcher, she informed the dispatcher her son was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and that he didn’t have any weapons. She was following her son who was walking on foot.
When the officer aimed the Taser at Gutierrez, he had one hand up in the air and with his other hand, he was pressing a phone to his ear, the suit says. Two officers then allegedly cornered Gutierrez against the wall of a building while both of his hands were visible.
K-9 arrives on scene
A third officer arrived with a K-9 on a leash, the lawsuit says, and the two other officers grabbed Gutierrez’s arms and forced them behind his back. Then the third officer ordered the K-9 to attack Gutierrez, biting him on the hip first before going for his face.
The lawsuit alleges the officers transported Gutierrez to the hospital to be treated for the dog bites, and failed to mention to hospital staff that he was in need of mental health treatment. Officers, the lawsuit says, then transported Gutierrez to the county jail without his clothes, where he languished for two days without any mental health treatment.
Keys said when she managed to bail her son out of jail, he was in his hospital gown and with no shoes.
“I feel that officers will do anything to cover their mistake,” she told The Bee. “They failed him in so many ways. Every step of the way, they failed my son.”
Gutierrez is facing criminal charges for resisting arrest and obstructing an officer, his mother said. Keys said she ended up not entering any plea in court for her charge over resisting arrest because she decided to do community service hours at her church.
Keys said she had too much going on with her son’s court dates, his treatment and having to change doctors, as well as her job.
“I just felt that it was better for me to take the community services, even though I knew that I didn’t do anything,” she told The Bee.
DeSimone said officers never told Keys she was under arrest, yet they charged her in a “retaliatory measure.”
“It’s outrageous,” he told The Bee.
With regard to Gutierrez’s arrest, DeSimone said “they had no reason to arrest him in the first place.”
“We think that there has to be a drastic change in the way their k-9 units are trained,” he said, adding that there also needs to be a change in approach in situations, such as Gutierrez’s.
This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 9:31 AM.
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