The Solano County Sheriff's Office on Monday released body-camera and in-car footage of an August 2020 arrest cited by a Northern California woman and her father in a federal lawsuit filed last week.
Nakia Porter, 33, and Joe Berry, 61, of Orangeville alleged two Solano County sheriff's deputies arrested, assaulted and "then brutally beat Porter out of consciousness, without cause" in a lawsuit filed by attorney Yasmin Almadani in the Eastern District of California last Wednesday. In conjunction with the suit, the Council on American Islamic Relations uploaded nearly 10 minutes of footage of the encounter to its YouTube page on the same day.
The Sheriff's Office said in a statement it released nearly 19 minutes of footage from Deputy Dalton McCampbell's body camera and 43 minutes of the in-car video "as a vital means of maintaining transparency with the community we serve."
McCampbell was one of two deputies named in the lawsuit. The Sheriff's Office didn't provide footage from Lisa McDowell's body camera. McDowell was the other named deputy.
Porter and her father told the deputies and said in the suit they parked in rural Dixon in order to change seats on the 100-mile drive home to Sacramento County from Oakland on Aug. 6, 2020. The filing said the deputies engaged in "unlawful seizure, assault and excessive force" after noticing Porter's car had a front license plate from Maryland and a back license plate from California when she pulled over to the same road where the pair were parked. Porter said she forgot to switch out her Maryland plate.
Body-camera footage showed McCampbell drawing his gun and ordering Porter to return to the driver's side of the car after approaching. As she started walking back, Porter then yelled, "You know what, detain her!" Porter then repeatedly said she wasn't resisting arrest while the deputies tried to detain her.
Porter's 3-year-old and 6-year-old daughters, as well as her 4-year-old niece, were in the backseat of her car.
The deputies then walked Porter to their patrol car, pushing her against it and then into the ground as they tried to handcuff her. The footage was shaky, but the suit alleged that the deputies "repeatedly punched, kicked, kneed (and) struck" her head, face, neck and stomach.
The Sheriff's Office on Monday alleged Porter "refused" to get back into her car when instructed to do so, then "resisted the deputies" and "slipped her right hand out of her handcuffs" before striking a deputy in the face.
McCampbell can be heard in the footage telling medical personnel that Porter "clocked" him in the face, later informing other officials "she tried to fight McDowell" before striking him. In the footage the Sheriff's Office released on Monday, a paramedic told McCampbell he had "a little bit of a scratch on his neck" after the deputy asked if he had a cut on his upper lip.
The video of the struggle didn't clearly show Porter slip her handcuffs or strike either of the deputies as she was taken to the ground. Porter claimed in the suit she lost consciousness for "over five minutes" and was dragged unconscious to the back of the squad car after McCampbell mounted and re-handcuffed her. The deputies told paramedics in the footage Porter was knocked out for fewer than 20 seconds.
"I think she's out," McCampbell said in the video, with Porter underneath him.
Solano County Sheriff's Sgt. Roy Stockton was also named in the lawsuit, which alleged he signed off on arrest reports lying about Porter fighting them and how long she was unconscious. The suit also alleged Stockton is affiliated with the Three Percenters, a far-right, anti-government militia movement whose symbols were posted on his social-media pages and inscribed on items he sold online, Open Vallejo reported in February.
"I strongly condemn the violent and racist views of these extreme right, militia and anti-government groups," Stockton said in an email to the outlet. "I believe that law enforcement officers and other public officials cannot keep their oaths to uphold the Constitution if they are associated with any extremist or anti-government groups."
Porter was booked on charges of obstruction and resisting executive officers last August. In September, the Solano County District Attorney's office opted not to file charges.
