By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Sacramento, CA – It was as impressive a speech as I have seen—particularly given the circumstances. The incident that occurred in December 2020 illustrates police really have not learned much from the George Floyd case—watching the video, both versions released by the Solano County Sheriff’s Department hardly exonerates them as I will explain shortly.
The case of Nakia Porter is horrible—this small woman who appears to be a threat to no one is driving with her father and three young kids under the age of six. They get tired and pull over. They do the quick driver swap. And the police arrive and start questioning her. The remarkable thing—it escalates to the point where they beat her, knocking her unconscious by pinning her on the ground with full weight on her, and then lie and cover it up.
On Wednesday, we heard from everyone—attorneys, Betty Williams from the NAACP, CAIR, the faith community, you name it. Finally, her father says two words and then Nakia comes up. She’s crying. She’s holding her 
composure. Holding her father. This is traumatic for her.
But if someone was waiting for her to find her voice, they need not have worried.
She already had a voice. She let it roar. She let it roar in a passionate, angry, but most of all eloquent and intelligent manner. It was among the most powerful things I have ever heard. She laid it bare for 25 minutes—eloquent, powerful, and composed.
This wasn’t an angry rant. This was a very intelligent, articulate young woman who found her voice and let everyone know that injustice was happening and she was going to do something about it.
My job became simple—bear witness. Read the article. Look at the photos I posted, some of my best (helps to have great material). But also listen to that 25 minutes of audio we posted because I knew my words would not do this story justice.
Later in the week, we saw a case where a 17-year-old was badly beaten by the police. San Joaquin County DA Tori Verber-Salazar did the right thing—she took it to the Grand Jury and got an indictment against two of the officers.
But the Solano County DA Krishna Abrams isn’t going to do anything. The Solano County Sheriff has done nothing. Last month his office released a statement defending the actions.
In a statement, the sheriff summarizes the incident as follows:
“Deputies were parked at the dead-end of Chevron Way, Dixon on an unrelated call for service when a silver SUV turned onto Chevron Way driving towards them. The SUV made a U-turn in front of the deputies’ patrol vehicles. Deputies initiated a traffic stop using their overhead lights after observing license plates from two different states on the vehicle.
“Both the driver and the passenger got out of the vehicle. The driver stated they were switching seats. Deputies told the driver to get back in the vehicle multiple times which she refused to do.
“As the driver was being detained, she resisted the deputies, slipped her right hand out of her handcuffs, and struck a deputy in the face.
“The driver was re-handcuffed following a brief struggle. After being evaluated by paramedics the driver requested transport to the hospital where she was examined by medical staff and cleared for transport to the jail.”
Having watched the video that they provided, I question their account of the incident.
Nakia Porter and her attorney said that Porter did nothing wrong. That’s actually an interesting point—certainly it is not clear what she did that required the police to detain her and order her to go back into the car. She was simply changing drivers. It is not clear what necessitated the police to intervene at this point.
During the initial stop, you can see them initiate force with the original detention. Again—why that was necessary, I don’t know. There is nothing on the video or in her calm but questioning demeanor that suggests they needed to put her in cuffs.
If you are going to fault Nakia Porter, it is probably the fact that when they are attempting to cuff her, she is not cooperative—but of course at this point, she is probably angry and frustrated at being cuffed when she clearly did not pose a threat to the sheriffs. Moreover, she is a young Black woman confronting two white sheriff’s deputies—she is probably suspicious of their intent and as this incident shows, with justification.
The sheriff said that she slipped her handcuffs and struck a deputy in the face—I can’t see it on the video, it’s dark and moving too quickly.
On their video, from initiation to having her on her stomach and cuffed was 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
For those inclined to defend the cops here, let’s think about that. In 145 seconds, the woman goes from calmly changing seats to on the ground, the officers’ weight on her, gasping, “I can’t breathe.”
Far from exonerating the sheriffs, in my view this vantage implicates them.
First, there is no attempt to calmly discuss with her why they are asking her to go back to the car. There is no attempt to de-escalate. They immediately, in fact, do the opposite—they put her in cuffs, they attempt to push her against the car, and eventually they take her to the ground.
Remember this is a mother of three, she weighs about 125 pounds, she is very slight of build—what is the threat? What was the crime that they thought they were investigating?
Does she cooperate perfectly? No. Did her actions warrant what happened to her? Not in my opinion.
Moreover, around 2:46 on the video, after she gasps for air, the deputy proclaims, “She’s unconscious.” And then, “She’s out.” He stands there. He’s calm. Breathing hard.
Isn’t this a medical emergency at this point? Shouldn’t he be on the radio calling for medical attention?
Their lack of medical response to an unconscious young woman is very troubling.
The deputies slowly and deliberatively move her. There is not a call for an ambulance that is heard on the video. This is the problem in the George Floyd case as well—no medical urgency? He’s more concerned with the fact that the father locked the car and that there are kids in the car and he can’t use his dog.
Still no call for the ambulance. The father slowly complied with orders from the police.
Meanwhile, Nakia remains unconscious in the back of the car—they said they had an ambulance coming at 7:20, but no one was checking on her condition. It was not until around 10:20 on the video that we see Nakia has regained consciousness and that deputies finally attend to her medical condition.
This is an example of an incident that never should have happened. A better response by the police, and the young woman could have been on her way without incident. Instead, it escalated to her being knocked unconscious, lying in the back of a police car.
There is a problem here. Why was this woman treated with suspicion when she simply was changing seats with her father and her three kids were in the back of the car? Why couldn’t the deputies handle the situation without the escalation of force? Why didn’t the sheriff acknowledge that perhaps his deputies mishandled the situation?
Unfortunately, we don’t have to go far to see police mishandle incidents. Recently we have covered unnecessary use of force cases in places like Stockton, Sacramento, Antioch, Vallejo and Vacaville.
The words of the NAACP’s Betty Williams hit home. She is calling Solano “the new Mississippi.
“If you’re going through Solano County, black people be aware because if you have to stop for anything late at night, early in the morning or during the day, and you are approached by Solano sheriff, you need to be aware,” Williams warned.
Back to the words of Nakia herself.
“So many of us are covering our faces, hiding, not speaking about the pain at which we go through, because we’re afraid to make people uncomfortable because there’s guilt and there’s pressure, and there’s pain that doesn’t belong to us. That that burden belongs to those that are doing these heinous acts to de-humanize people so they can feel good about them not loving themselves.”
This is 2021, this is what an intelligent young Black woman with a degree from UC Davis has to think about.
I remember once I was stopped by police and my first instinct was to get out of my vehicle. The cop ordered me to get back in my car. Guess what, I got back in my car and I had no problems besides getting a citation.
Would you agree that going from woman won’t get back in the car to woman unconscious in two minutes is failure by the cops to de-escalate?
What you fail to say is the cops reported that woman resisted and struck an officer in the face during detention.
Dodge 1.
I didn’t fail to say it, it’s my article, I don’t see it happen. Like I said in the article, I see three failures of the police here: (1) why did they attempt to detain her in the first place, (2) failure to de-escalate, (3) failure to attend to her when she lost consciousness. On the video you could not see her strike an officer in the face or her slip the handcuffs. By that point, the cops lost control of the situation that seemed extraordinarily unnecessary given the original nature of the encounter and her demeanor.
I know it’s in your article, that’s where I got the info. You failed to say it in your above scenario. Also you said yourself about the video “it’s dark and moving too quickly”. So you really can’t say it didn’t happen either.
Agree – I don’t know whether it did or did not happen. But not sure the sheriff does either – he’s taking his deputy’s word on it.
Any explanation regarding that?
I briefly looked at the video the other day, and did not arrive at the same conclusion that David has. I’d have to study it over-and-over again to really analyze it, which is not something I plan to do. I learned my lesson regarding that, while “discussing” the Picnic Day incident. (A waste of time and energy, in which even a video did not “settle” differences in how it was seen.)
David covered a press conference, apparently arranged by this person’s attorney. As David noted, the incident occurred more than a year ago, and no outside agency has determined that action is needed. Let’s hope that they don’t do so solely as a result of a press conference.
Cities and police departments have enough fiscal challenges, without David facilitating legal action against them via “trial by blog”.
“Any explanation regarding that?”
I am a little perplexed – did they find something with the vehicle license? They don’t say it, didn’t ticket it, didn’t charge it. So not clear on that point. Also not sure why they characterize it as a traffic stop, they were not pulled over, they were already stopped.
I recall overhearing (via police communications with their headquarters) that the car did indeed belong to the woman (or someone else in the vehicle). So apparently, that was in question.
I would think/hope that at the point this reached, they would not pursue a ticket if there was a reasonable explanation for it.
I did not even see exactly how she passed-out. But I do recall thinking that they should have called an ambulance (assuming they had not done so).
This point (regarding “characterization”) seems irrelevant. Also, I believe it is correctly labeled a “traffic stop”.
The other part is more problematic – what’s the point about running the license – they either found something or they didn’t, but the release never mentions it. So why bring it up?
The reason they stopped the car in the first place?
Does a car have to be moving in order to initiate a traffic stop? I think it’s just the lingo.
Is that worse than the “dark underbelly of Davis”?