Court date changed for man accused of injuring a cop

A preliminary hearingsetting is on the June calendar for a 30-year-old Vacaville man, charged with violating his probation and assaulting and injuring a Vacaville police officer on New Year's Eve.

Terrence Travon Mitchell, who last appeared in Solano County Superior Court on May 12 to set a preliminary hearing date and submit a Pitchess motion, heard Judge Scott Kays order him to return to Department 11 at 9:30 a.m. June 22 for the setting and motion in the Justice Center in Fairfield.

A Pitchess motion is a special type of discovery motion requesting information from a police officer's confidential employment file, a motion often submitted when a defendant alleges police misconduct.

Mitchell faces 11 felony charges: assault with a deadly weapon not a firearm; assault with a deadly weapon with force and possible great bodily injury; resisting a police officer resulting in serious bodily injury; battery with serious bodily injury; three counts of obstructing or resisting a police officer; one count of making a terrorist threat; threatening a police officer; and two counts of battery on a custodial officer.

Mitchell is represented by the Solano County Deputy Public Defender Jeannette Garcia. Deputy District Attorney Hunter Burnette leads the prosecution.

As previously reported, Vacaville Police Lt. Frank Piro told The Reporter that dispatchers received a call at around 11:30 p.m. Dec. 31 about a disturbance at an apartment in the 500 block of Markham Avenue in Vacaville.

A woman told dispatchers her boyfriend had “attempted to gain access to her home,” and may have been intoxicated, he said.

When officers arrived at the scene, they found a man, later identified as Mitchell, outside the apartment.

Officers “gave him some instructions to get on the ground,” said Piro. “He didn't do that.”

As an officer approached Mitchell, an altercation occurred, said Piro, adding, “And one of the officers was violently assaulted by the suspect.”

He did not identify the officer, who, he said, sustained “a significant head injury” and was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Mitchell was arrested in the 4000 block of Plumas Court and booked into Solano County Jail at around 2:30 a.m. Jan. 1 on suspicion of the charges. His bail has been set at $200,000, jail records indicate. He remains in custody at the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.

The Solano County District Attorney's Office filed its criminal complaint on Jan. 4.