Cop sued over viral Mcdonald’s lot assault
Officer was recorded kicking and dragging a noncombative woman
SAN JOSE >> A woman is suing a San Jose police officer and the city over a violent assault last summer in which she was kicked and dragged during a car stop, an encounter inflamed by a viral video that showed she was not combative when the officer resorted to serious force.
The federal excessive-force lawsuit was filed Aug. 18 on behalf of Guadalupe Marin, the woman who was injured July 22, 2020, after Officer Matthew Rodriguez kicked her in the abdomen, then dragged her across a Mcdonald’s parking lot near East Santa Clara and 24th streets.
Rodriguez currently is being prosecuted on a charge of misdemeanor assault and battery under color of authority in connection with the use of force. He remains on administrative leave from the San Jose Police Department.
Another officer, Tyler Moran, has been named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit on the contention that he failed to intervene and stop Rodriguez’s actions. Moran since has left SJPD, the Police Department confirmed Wednesday.
Both officers also are accused of falsely claiming in their police reports that Marin was resisting them, according to the lawsuit authored by attorney Sarah Marinho. A minute-long eyewitness video — later backed up by officers’ body-camera footage — shows Marin 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 facedown onto the pavement, before handcuffing her. He then drags her several feet by the wrists across the ground toward an unmarked police SUV.
The Police Department referred requests for comment on the lawsuit to the City Attorney’s Office, which declined to comment Wednesday, because it is pending litigation.
Some of the filings revive accounts that publicly surfaced after Rodriguez was charged last September, including police supervisors questioning the necessity of the officer’s actions not long after Marin was arrested.
Police assert that the officers drove up to the BMW and got out with guns drawn because the vehicle had eluded two attempted traffic stops in the previous four days. The lawsuit contends that one of the officers on scene quickly surmised that Marin was not the driver involved into those previous instances, and that Marin’s sister, a passenger that day, had bought the car from a local mechanic.
The lawsuit states that Rodriguez should never have considered Marin to be a danger when they ordered her out of the car — with Moran pointing a gun at Marin’s sister, whose two children were in the back seat.
Part of that assessment, according to the filing, is that Marin was clearly “unarmed since he could see she had nothing in her hands and was wearing form-fitting shorts and a tank top,” and that because she is “5-1 and soft-spoken, was objectively not a threat in any way to these officers.”
Both the lawsuit and a police report accompanying Rodriguez’s criminal complaint do show consensus on a few points: A police supervisor found inconsistencies between Rodriguez’s body-camera footage and his initial statements that the 39-year-old woman was not complying with his orders. The report and lawsuit suggest a communication gap, when the driver thought she was obeying the officer’s “get on the ground” order by squatting, when Rodriguez wanted her to lie on the ground and crawl toward him.
Moments later, Rodriguez was heard yelling, “I’m going to kick you in the (expletive) face!” after which he “swiftly kicked Plaintiff in the abdomen at full force, knocking the wind out of her” before dragging her across the pavement.
He would later tell her, “Why you didn’t (expletive) listen?”
After the violence, Marin’s “face, knees and ankles were rubbed raw and bloody from being dragged across the hot pavement,” according to the suit. She also suffered hyperextended shoulders that kept her from being able to lift her arms for several days, and other assorted injuries that caused her to need help getting dressed.
On top of the excessive-force claim, the lawsuit alleges a systematic pattern of unnecessary force used by officers paired with resisting-arrest claims to justify that force, and insufficient training and internal oversight. The filing cites a lawsuit filed last month on behalf of Anthony Cho, who alleges that Rodriguez, Moran and two other officers beat him with batons and body strikes during a police stop on the premise that he was driving a stolen vehicle.
That was reported July 18, 2020, four days before Marin was injured. Cho was not resisting arrest, his lawsuit states, and an resisting-arrest charge later was dismissed by prosecutors.
Marin is currently under a courtissued protective order from Rodriguez, who has pleaded not guilty to his criminal charge.
Contact Robert Salonga at 408-9205002.