By Brinda Kalita
RIVERSIDE, CA – During a pretrial hearing Thursday in Riverside County Superior Court, a sergeant revealed that, after being bitten by an in-custody man, an officer punched the same man.
Carlos Martinez, represented by Deputy Public Defender Delia Metoyer, has been charged with resisting officer orders and for assaulting a police officer. He was being held previously on a large number of other felony and misdemeanor charges ranging from lewd conduct with children and other sex crimes to driving under the influence.
The hearing first began with the prosecution, represented by District Attorney Jessica Roundy, bringing in Sergeant Patrick Larson to testify.
Larson is a supervisor at the Robert Presley Center, where the assault by Martinez against one of the officers allegedly took place. 
In his testimony, Larson revealed that the man was being moved from the Presley Center to the UC Riverside Health Center, in order to receive treatment for his mental illness.
However, Martinez did not want to leave the Presley Center, according to Larson.
“He (Martinez) was agitated and confused. He did not have a shirt on, and when I attempted to make conversation about his move with him, he would respond with off-topic and nonsensical statements,” Larson stated when detailing Martinez’s distrust with the officers at the center.
Larson then shared that on the day that Martinez was to be moved, he refused to do what the officers told him to do. Officers then decided that it would be best to get him onto the floor, handcuff him, and then move him out of the cell.
However, this only led to Martinez becoming more aggressive and biting one of the officers, and the officer then punched to get him to stop resisting against him and his fellow officers. Martinez was then handcuffed and transported to the UC Riverside Health Center.
In cross-examination, PD Metoyer focused on highlighting some of the injustices that he said his client had faced in the Presley Center.
First, she asked Officer Larson about some of the protocols that the officers should have followed in order to transport mentally ill inmates, like Martinez, from place to place.
Larson then admitted that there are no specific protocols for dealing with mentally ill inmates.
“Officers use the following de-escalation protocols for all inmates: to talk, be attentive, to reason, and to understand. We treat all inmates with the same dignity and respect,” Larson added in his response to PD Metoyer.
PD Metoyer then asked if they ever provided Martinez with a Spanish translator, as Spanish is Martinez’s first and preferred language. Larson then revealed that the bitten officer was the only officer at the scene who communicated in Spanish to Martinez.
Additionally, Larson did not believe that Martinez needed a translator, as he had many conversations with Martinez predominantly in English before.
PD Metoyer then asked the court to request DDA Roundy to turn over the police’s “use of force” forms as she did not have access to them. Judge Mac Fisher then ruled for the prosecution to turn over these forms to the defense.
A preliminary hearing was set for later in March to deal with Martinez’s bevy of charges.
