Settlement in death of mentally ill man
Pleasanton has agreed to pay $5.9 million in the death of a mentally ill 38-year-old man who was shot with Tasers and pressed to the ground facedown by police after breaking bottles and causing other damage at a grocery store.
Officers responded to a call from a Raley’s store in August 2018 that a customer had broken some alcohol bottles and smashed a shopping cart and was talking erratically. They found Jacob Bauer walking nearby, and after questioning him, knocked him to the ground, handcuffed him and tased him.
Seven officers reached the scene and held Bauer down, one pressing his head and neck to the ground for four minutes, according to a federal magistrate. One officer said Bauer had bitten him, which Bauer denied.
When he cried out, “You’re suffocating me,” one officer replied, “You can breathe, that’s why you’re talking.” He resumed answering questions but stopped moving a minute later, and medical personnel who arrived shortly afterward found he was no longer breathing.
The Alameda County coroner’s office said methamphetamine found in Bauer’s blood was the cause of his death, but three medical witnesses in a lawsuit by his parents, John and Rose Bauer, said Bauer had been asphyxiated by police. The city agreed to the settlement after U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ruled June 2 that the parents could sue three of the officers for allegedly using excessive force.
Beeler said Bauer had cooperated with the officers and also noted that his parents had been reporting their son’s mental condition to police for a month, most recently three days before his death. One provision of the settlement requires a top police official to meet with the parents and hear their proposals for dealing with the mentally ill.
Attorney Gary Gwilliam said the Bauers will ask police to respond to such reports by sending mental health workers to the scene, similar to a policy used in Eugene, Ore. Gwilliam said John Bauer has been advocating such a program to the Pleasanton City Council since his son’s death.
Jacob Bauer had no criminal record and had a career in computer science until his mental health deteriorated and he moved in with his parents several years before his death, Gwilliam said.
In a statement released by the family’s lawyers, Rose Bauer said, “Jacob lost his life over a few broken bottles at a grocery store. I hope this settlement creates real changes to stop police form using excessive force against the mentally ill.”
The settlement does not include any admission of wrongdoing by the city or its police. A lawyer for the city could not be reached for comment.