Lawsuit filed against local officer for alleged excessive force

A Sacramento woman filed a federal lawsuit against a Yuba City police officer for allegedly punching her in the face before arresting her outside a bar last spring.

Felicia Martinez, a registered nurse from Sacramento, is suing officer Mileena Mulcahy and the city of Yuba City for excessive force, false arrest, battery, negligence and interference with civil rights, according to the petition filed in the state eastern U.S. District Court Friday. It demands compensatory general and special damages, statutory damages, exemplary and punitive damages, costs of suit, attorney’s fees, and any other relief deemed proper by the court. It also demands a jury trial.

The suit stems from an incident the night of April 13, 2018, when Martinez and friends were at Big John’s Bar and Grill on Bridge Street. After midnight, Martinez was verbally insulted by an unknown man at the bar and moment’s later, someone sprayed pepper spray in her direction, according to the suit. The pepper spray caused her to cough and her eyes and throat were irritated. Martinez, her friends and other bar patrons irritated by the pepper sprayer began to exit and make their way to the parking lot next door. Martinez was still unable to see and was coughing and spitting out the pepper spray irritant, and was crying out in pain, according to the suit.

Her friends were trying to hail a ride through a ride-sharing

app when another person offered them a ride. As her friends tried to help Martinez into the car, Mulcahy and other officers approached, though Martinez did not know who they were because of the pepper spray in her eyes and because they allegedly did not identify themselves.

The officers, including Mulcahy, allegedly grabbed Martinez and she reacted to the “sudden grabbing by persons unknown to her by trying to free her arms from being held,” according to the lawsuit. Mulcahy allegedly punched Martinez in the face, who fell to the ground and was handcuffed. Martinez suffered a black eye and bodily aches and pains from the