The family of Heriberto Alejandro Sanchez-Mayen filed a lawsuit alleging the actions of St. Petersburg police caused his permanent injuries while he was in a prisoner transport van. (Screenshots from WFLA News/YouTube)
The family of a man in police custody who became paralyzed and had to have his legs amputated after riding unrestrained and handcuffed in the back of a prisoner transport van in Florida when the officer suddenly and aggressively slammed on the brakes is suing over the incident.
The family of Heriberto Alejandro Sanchez-Mayen made the allegations in a lawsuit filed this week seeking more than $75,000 against two St. Petersburg police officers from an arrest last June for trespassing on a vacant city lot where he was sleeping. His lawyers said the incident left him a quadriplegic and living in a nursing home in Pennsylvania, where he requires full-time care.
“This man is a stump now because of the city of St. Petersburg and how they handled and treated this human being,” Thomas Scolaro, his family’s lawyer, said in a news conference.
Scolaro said Sanchez-Mayen was illegally arrested “for the sole purpose of teaching him a lesson. That is his sentence now for simply sleeping in a public lot,” he said. “They sure taught him a lesson.”
The Tampa Bay Times reported that neither officer was disciplined in the incident and remain employed with the department.
“The St. Petersburg Police Department denies the claims and trusts in the judicial process,” the agency said in a statement, referring calls to the city attorney’s office, which didn’t immediately respond, the paper reported.
Officer Sarah Gaddis saw Sanchez-Mayen sleeping on cardboard on a vacant lot on June 8, 2023, at 10:27 a.m., court documents said.
Police body camera footage captures the sequence of events. The officer points out a “No Trespassing” sign.
“You see this sign right here?” the officer asks.
“You’re going to write me a citation?” Sanchez-Mayen asks.
“No, you’re going to take the ride today,” Gaddis says. “I’ve decided that you’re going to actually go to jail today. I’ve had far too many problems with you.”
“You get tickets all the time,” the officer also says. “You don’t care. You don’t change your ways.”
Court documents say minutes later, Officer Michael Thacker arrived in a prisoner transport van to take Sanchez-Mayen to the Pinellas County Jail.
“People like you” should be charged with felonies, Thacker said while restraining Sanchez-Mayen in handcuffs linked to a metal chain around his waist, according to court documents. Thacker put Sanchez-Mayen into the van’s rear compartment, which had no seat belts and anchors and nothing to secure a prisoner, then drove the van “in a reckless manner” and “at an unsafe rate of speed.”
The sudden hard stop caused Sanchez-Mayen to be thrust forward, causing his head to hit the metal partition at the van’s prisoner compartment bulkhead, the lawsuit alleges.
When Thacker heard the crash of Sanchez-Mayen’s head hitting the bulkhead, he tried to see what was going on through the van’s livestream camera feed, but the camera system hadn’t been turned on, court documents said. When he turned it on, he saw Sanchez-Mayen lying face down, motionless, on the floor. Thacker didn’t pull over to check on his prisoner and continued driving to the Pinellas County Jail, the lawsuit alleges.
At the jail’s intake sally port, Thacker opened the rear doors and saw Sanchez-Mayen face down, unconscious, and unresponsive, court documents said.
Thacker climbed into the van and repeatedly told Sanchez-Mayen to “wake up,” documents said. But the man didn’t move. Thacker shook him, then dragged his body out of the van by his leg, causing Sanchez-Mayen’s head to hit the van’s bumper, rear door and concrete ground on the way out, the complaint said.
Thacker performed an “aggressive sternum rub” on his chest until medical personnel arrived and took him to a hospital, according to court documents.
He suffered permanent injuries to his cervical spine. Both of his legs had to be amputated above the knee, and he was rendered a quadriplegic.
His criminal trespassing charge was dismissed last month over “no trespassing” signage placement issues.
