A judge has thrown out federal civil rights claims filed in a suit against Eugene police stemming from the 2019 death of a man found with a seat belt wrapped around his neck in the back of a police car.
The suit’s claim of a wrongful death in violation of state law survived the challenge but would have to be pursued in Lane County Circuit Court.
U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane said lawyers representing the sister of Michael Amador Sanchez, the 34-year-old who died of asphyxiation, changed their allegations midstream.
The federal suit initially alleged Eugene police were negligent in failing to accommodate Sanchez’s mental health crisis, “causing him greater injury and indignity” in the course of arrest.
But amid the city of Eugene’s move to throw out the charges, the sister’s lawyers argued instead that the officer was aware that Sanchez, while in the throes of a mental health crisis, had gotten a seat belt wrapped around his neck and failed to summon an ambulance.
But the lawyers never showed that Officer Carlos M. Jones saw the seat belt around Sanchez’s neck and chose to ignore the risk, McShane ruled.
“The theory has shifted from one alleging Officer Jones should have noticed something was wrong, to one alleging Officer Jones knew Mr. Sanchez was choking and chose to do nothing,” the judge wrote. “On this record, there is no evidence from which a jury could find Officer Jones saw the seat belt.”
“Stated differently, Plaintiffs’ theory essentially requires a jury to find that Officer Jones is a sociopath,” McShane wrote.
Attorney Benjamin J. Miller, for the city of Eugene, wrote in court papers, “The circumstances of this case, while tragic, do not amount to a federal cause of action.”
Attorney Robert A. Miller, representing Sanchez’s sister and his estate, declined comment on the ruling Friday, and said he needed to consult with Sanchez’s sister before deciding whether to pursue the wrongful death claim in state court.
Eugene police arrested Sanchez early on Jan. 30, 2019, after responding to a report of a “trash bin fire.” Sanchez ran from the fire, holding a garbage can lid, and into the center of Oregon 99. After ignoring police commands to get on the ground, Sanchez eventually complied and was handcuffed, according to the judge’s opinion.
Officers physically picked him up after he refused to stand on his own, McShane wrote in his opinion. His jacket was singed and his face was bloody.
Sanchez suddenly went limp, refused to get into the police car and was banging his head against the ground outside the car, according to the judge’s opinion.
When Sanchez resisted being placed in the back seat of the patrol car, police bound his feet with flexible restraints and placed him inside the car.
Jones wrote in his police report that the restraints around Sanchez’s feet were to help “control Sanchez’s movements and prevent injuries to officers.” Police didn’t put a seat belt on Sanchez because he kept kicking at officers and thrashing around during his arrest, according to Eugene police.
Once in the back seat, Sanchez turned himself upside down, with his head in the wheel well and his legs in the air. A sergeant instructed Jones to drive Sanchez to the hospital.
With his hands and feet bound, Sanchez thrashed around in the back of the car during the drive to PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center University District Hospital.
At times, Jones was able to see Sanchez via a rear-facing camera that displayed an image on a monitor in the patrol car. When Jones saw Sanchez’s feet in the air, he asked him to put his feet down, concerned he would break the partition separating the front seat from the back seat, according to the officer’s report and sworn declaration.
Jones told Sanchez they were headed to the hospital. He drove at a normal speed, stopping for two traffic lights, according to the opinion.
About 90 seconds into the drive, Sanchez went limp and quiet, according to the opinion.
Jones said when he recognized that Sanchez was no longer thrashing around in the back seat, he thought Sanchez “had either become cooperative or was simply fatigued,” the officer’s report said.
Jones arrived at the hospital after a 7-minute, 33-second drive. Jones got out of his car and went inside to talk to an emergency room nurse, while another officer who followed Jones’ car checked on Sanchez.
Officer Tyler L. Tremain opened the rear door to Jones’ car and discovered Sanchez unresponsive, his knees curled into his chest. He alerted Jones and a nurse, who found a seat belt wrapped around Sanchez’s neck in the back seat. Jones cut the seatbelt but Sanchez had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.
Sanchez arrived at the hospital in a coma and died 241 days later at the hospital, according to the opinion.
The suit, as filed, alleged police failed to recognize Sanchez was suffering from a mental health crisis , failed to properly secure him in the back of a patrol car to ensure his safe transport to a hospital, failed to monitor his conduct in the rear seat and failed to summon an ambulance to properly care for him.
Sanchez had a diagnosis of bipolar disease with psychotic features and had several run-ins with police in the days before his Jan. 30, 2019, arrest, according to the suit.
Jones, in a sworn declaration to the court, said he didn’t recognize Sanchez during the arrest and didn’t know whether Sanchez had a disability and only later learned he had contact with Sanchez twice before on the job.
The judge found that the plaintiffs must show that the officer knew of Sanchez’s serious medical need to prevail on a federal “deliberate indifference” claim, not that the officer was simply negligent in providing adequate medical care.
Further, to allow a claim that the officer “failed to reasonably accommodate” Sanchez’s disability by failing to summon an ambulance while Sanchez was in the “throes of a mental health crisis,” the plaintiffs would have had to demonstrate that Jones “saw the seatbelt, realized it posed a risk to Mr. Sanchez, and chose to ignore that risk,” the judge wrote.
In Jones’ deposition, he said he had no knowledge the seatbelt was wrapped around Sanchez’s neck during the drive to the hospital and said his car’s rear-facing camera “significantly limited” his ability to see Sanchez directly.
While lawyers for Sanchez’s sister argued that the seat belt was visible on the car’s monitor for 14 to 16 non-consecutive seconds while Jones was driving, the judge found that such a “scintilla of evidence” was insufficient to prove Sanchez knew the seat belt was around Sanchez’s neck and intentionally failed to act.
“The evidence demonstrates that Officer Jones was multitasking: actively driving a police car, communicating with Mr. Sanchez to try to calm him down, occasionally trying to turn his head to get a better look at Mr. Sanchez. That he did not happen to glance at the monitor during one of those few seconds depicted on the video is unfortunate,” McShane wrote. “But it does not rise to the intentional conduct now alleged by Plaintiffs.’’
-- Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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