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A Northern California woman has filed a federal lawsuit against police after accusing officers of using excessive force during a traffic stop and allegedly lying on police reports.
According to NPR, while Nakia Porter was traveling through Northern California with her father Joe Powell and three small children on August 6, 2020, police from the Solano County Sheriff’s Office pulled up as she and her father were switching drivers. When officers Lisa McDowell and Dalton McCampbell got out, they drew their guns and ordered Porter back in the car. They then grabbed her and slammed her to the ground, which can be seen in the body camera footage. In her lawsuit, she claimed that she was punched in her head and stomach, that police kneeled into her back and her hair was pulled. Porter said she fell unconscious during the incident as well. After allegedly being knocked out, Porter was dragged to the back of the police car. McCampbell can be heard saying “I think she’s out” in the body camera footage.
The body camera footage also shows the officers lying to paramedics about how long Porter was unconscious and claiming that she walked to the police car. Porter was also denied medical attention despite requesting it.
Porter spent the night in jail after being accused of resisting arrest but was never charged. In the video, she can be heard telling officers that she is not resisting arrest and that they didn’t read her her rights.
“I was doing my best to do everything right, giving no reason to be treated like this,” Porter told NPR.
McCampbell and McDowell claimed they pulled Porter and Powell over because they noticed their car had a California license plate and a Maryland license plate. The lawsuit stated that while they were pulled over, officers clarified that the car was not stolen.
“However, the deputies had called in the rear license plate to their dispatch and knew that it matched the description of the car and that there was no report of the car being stolen,” read the lawsuit.
Porter is claiming that not only was body camera footage was edited significantly, but that officers lied on police reports about what really happened during the arrest.
“Thankfully, the video evidence contradicted the fabricated facts,” Porter’s attorney, Yasin Almadani told NPR. “So what occurred here, we believe, was a racially motivated beating and terrorizing of a Black family.”
The sheriff’s deputies are accused of violating state and federal civil rights statutes by engaging in “unlawful seizure, assault and excessive force.”
