WOODLAND, CA – Law enforcement officials “coerced” a complaining witness into identifying the accused at the scene of an indecent exposure incident and one of the officers used “excessive force” in detaining and arresting the accused, charged the defense Monday in a preliminary hearing in Yolo County Superior Court.
The accused is charged with two felony counts of indecent exposure and one misdemeanor count for resisting/obstructing a public officer in a Sept. 22, 2024, incident after the Davis Police Department received two calls about a man of color having his pants “half down” and exposing his genitals.
The first call from the first complaining witness occurred after 10 p.m. and the latter call from the second complaining witness occurred about 50 minutes later, according to testimony.
The accused is also facing two enhancements for having a prior criminal conviction and being a registered sex offender.
During Monday’s testimony, responding Davis Police Officer David Reister explained to Judge Daniel Wolk that the first complaining witness described the suspect and was “adamant” that the “suspect was wearing a woven belt” about a foot in length and had a mask over his face.
Officer Reister noted when he asked Complaining Witness #1 if she would be able to identify him, she asserted that she could “from his clothes.”
During the interactions with Complaining Witness #1, Officer Reister’s partner, Officer Stephen Ramos, was monitoring the area in his patrol car around F Street and 8th Street when he heard a woman (Complaining Witness #2) screaming.
Complaining Witness #2 later clarified she had encountered the accused at a park bench near her apartment and had realized his genitalia was out and he was masturbating. She said she began screaming and chasing after the accused on foot, catching a glimpse of what he looked like as he was “running down” the path and eventually identifying him in the field show-up.
Officer Ramos testified that, after hearing the screaming, he pursued, chasing the accused on foot, and claimed he “told him (the accused) to stop or I was going to Tase him.” Shortly after this, Officer Ramos noted the accused stopped running when he reached a railroad embankment.
Without his body camera on, Officer Ramos then deployed his Taser which was “effective,” making the accused fall to the ground and complain of pain.
Upon being questioned by Deputy Public Defender Stephen Betz, Officer Ramos confirmed the accused had no weapons on him, was not wearing a belt of any sort, and there were no physical confrontation attempts on the two complaining witnesses or two officers.
Officer Reister and Complaining Witness #1 were also present at the railroad embankment, with Officer Reister using a “field-show up,” where the suspect is detained in the field for “quick identification,” to see if Complaining Witness #1 could identify the accused.
Complaining Witness #1 asked Officer Reister if these incidents “had been happening a lot” or were “common in Davis,” to which Officer Reister explained he could not discuss any details with her because he didn’t want to “compromise the investigation.”
When Complaining Witness #1 was asked to identify the suspect, she replied, “I don’t know, his belt doesn’t look like… I want to say it’s not. Is that even a belt? It looks like a drawstring.” The officers confirmed the accused was wearing dark sweatpants with a drawstring.
After hearing this, Officer Reister asserted “negative” on his radio meaning that there was no identification of the suspect from Complaining Witness #1.
At this point, Officers Reister and Ramos said they had already decided to arrest the accused based on Complaining Witness #2’s identification. However, Officer Ramos continued to interact with Complaining Witness #1, stating to her, “We need to know if we should be looking for people or if we have the right guy.”
Officer Ramos then continued “relaying information to her,” as noted by DPD Betz, and told Complaining Witness #1, “The reason why we started chasing him was because someone else was screaming for help from this apartment complex. It appears he might have been doing the same thing which led up to him and we are looking for the guy from the apartment complex…We’re trying to establish whether this is the same person or not.”
Officer Reister then injected, stating to Complaining Witness #1, “Your apartment is what, ¼ mile from here?” with Officer Ramos adding it was a “quick walking distance.”
After this interaction, Complaining Witness #1 said, “I’ll say yes” about the identification of the accused.
After cross-examining both officers on the stand, DPD Betz argued that even at a preliminary hearing, the prosecution “failed” to prove anything in the case, especially since Complaining Witness #1’s identification of the accused was “initially negative.”
“Sadly what we have here is an identification that was in my view, absolutely coerced,” DPD Betz argued to Judge Wolk regarding Counts 1 and 2, also adding, “What we have is an officer that knows better, who knows that this isn’t the proper procedure to make an identification because he read the admonishment.”
DPD Betz said even after Complaining Witness #1 could not confidently identify the accused, the officers were “so caught up in trying to make an identification the officer’s partner ends up saying, ‘listen, we caught this guy running from a scene elsewhere nearby.’”
DPD Betz also noted that because the officers were “piling on the inappropriate identification,” it was an “absolute violation of due process, especially from someone who says she can only identify him from the clothing and then makes a comment that the clothing itself did not match what she recalled seeing.”
Concluding his arguments regarding Counts 1 and 2, DPD Betz stated Complaining Witness #1’s identification of the accused was “[a]ll based on the fact that she received information she shouldn’t have which then implicitly influenced her identification which is a huge problem. It’s just not sufficient, even for a preliminary hearing. I recognize that’s a low standard…It is a very low standard.”
Regarding Count 3, DPD Betz asserted Officer Ramos did not clearly state that he was a law enforcement official when chasing the accused, who was “Tased when he’s not doing anything. The officer has no information that he has a weapon. He’s not doing anything. He’s not resisting.”
Responding to Officer Ramos’s choice to Tase the accused, DPD Betz stated, “I don’t believe that the officer is engaged in the lawful course of his duties because I believe at that point that’s excessive force.”
Judge Wolk, noting he appreciated the argument from both sides, ultimately sided with Deputy District Attorney Brian Popkes, who argued Complaining Witness #1 was “mistaken about what she was saying” about the accused having a belt and found probable cause to move the accused’s case forward.
The accused will remain out of custody on supervised own recognizance (SOR) with an ankle monitor and will appear back in court March 10 for arraignment on all three charges.
