Cop recorded kicking, dragging woman faces assault charge
SANJOSE>> Prosecutors have filed a misdemeanor assault charge against a veteran San Jose police officer who kicked and dragged a non-combative woman during a car stop in July, which happened in full view of cellphone-recording bystanders and compounded the fallout from its violent response at George Floyd demonstrations earlier in the summer.
Officer Matthew Rodriguez, 36, was charged Tuesday by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office with a misdemeanor count of assault and battery under color of authority, in connection with the July 22 encounter in a Mcdonald’s parking lot on East Santa Clara Street. The charge carries a potential maximum sentence of a year in jail.
Rodriguez is expected to self-surrender and will be arraigned once his first court appearance is scheduled, according to a news release. That date has not been set.
Among the chief findings of an investigation into the force was that video footage “contradicted the officer’s report” that the 39-yearold woman was not complying with his commands, and instead showed her following his orders by getting out of her car and on the ground. Then Rodriguez said “I’m going to kick you in the (expletive) face,” and kicked the woman, according to prosecutors.
The woman suffered contusions and lacerations to her face, stomach and legs. Rodriguez, an 11-year member of the police department assigned to the Violent Crimes Enforcement Team, has been on administrative leave.
“No officer should use more force than necessary to take a person into custody. When they do, they not only commit a crime, they weaken the bonds of trust with the community that so many excellent police officers have worked their entire careers to build,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “The SJPD detectives assigned to this case conducted a fair, thorough and professional investigation involving one of their own officers.”
In a statement, police Chief Eddie Garcia said “these types of investigations are deeply disappointing but are necessary.”
“Every day hundreds of San Jose officers patrol our city and encounter similarly challenging circum
stances and navigate them appropriately,” the statement continues. “We completed a thorough investigation and sent our findings to the district attorney for review where a filing decision was made.”
Rev. Jethroe “Je f f ” Moore, president of the San Jose-silicon Valley NAACP, said the charge against Rodriguez has to be paired with real consequences.
“This is going in the right direction, but it’s about how we’re going to finish,” Moore said. “Now we need to go through the process of trial and his firing, and we don’t want an outside arbitrator to come in and give him his job back.”
A minute-long eyewitness video — now backed by accounts of officers’ body-camera footage —
shows the woman sitting outside a silver BMW as Rodriguez stands a few feet away. The officer darts toward the woman and kicks her in the stomach, sending her face-down onto the pavement, before handcuffing her. He drags her several feet by the wrists across the ground toward an unmarked police SUV.
Police said they sought the BMW for a week, after officers tried to pull it over for an expired registration on July 18 and its driver fled. When officers tried to stop it on July 21, it sped away again. Officers saw the car again the next day and conducted a traffic stop, leading to the encounter in the Mcdonald’s lot.
The violence unfolded as a second officer appeared to have his gun trained on the woman’s vehicle, where witnesses said two children sat inside crying as another woman yelled that they had “just bought the car.”
The injured woman was arrested on suspicion of three misdemeanors: resisting arrest, possessing drug paraphernalia, and driving with a suspended license. The DA’S office confirmed Tuesday that prosecutors declined to file those charges.
The San Jose Police Officers’ Association said the investigation into Rodriguez’s conduct failed to consider the potential threat posed during any vehicle stop.
“Virtually every felony car stop can be dangerous for the responding officer and they are trained to be at a heightened state of vigilance when making these stops and potential arrests,” union president Paul Kelly said in a statement. “It is unfortunate and wrong that the district attorney is politicizing this incident by criminalizing the actions of our officer who was responding to a very stressful incident.”
Police said a use-of-force review was already underway when the video surfaced July 23, but did not announce that Rodriguez had been placed on leave until a day later, after the witness video had been widely viewed. The DA’S office said its newly formed Public and Law Enforcement Integrity Team was reviewing the case.