A St. Petersburg man by the name of Heriberto Sanchez-Mayen has recently filed a lawsuit against the city of St. Petersburg and two police officers as a result of poor treatment during an arrest. Sanchez-Mayen was woken on June 8th by officer Sarah Gaddis in a grass field. Sanchez-Mayen told the officer that he had fallen asleep in the lot on account of homelessness and asked Gaddis if she was going to write him a ticket, as she told him he was trespassing.

Gaddis responded with an affirmative originally, before changing her mind and deciding to arrest Sanchez-Mayen. Officer Micheal Thacker was called as backup for the arrest. According to body cam footage, the two officers loaded Sanchez-Mayen into the back of the police van and restrained him with handcuffs and a belly chain.

The poor treatment occurred in how Thacker allegedly drove “in a reckless manner and at an unsafe rate of speed”. This resulted in Sanchez-Mayen being thrown around in the backseat with no seat belts for safety. Thacker then braked hard for a red light, which caused Sanchez-Mayen to be thrown into the metal partition dividing the officers from the back. 

Upon arriving at the Pinellas County jail, the officers attempted to wake Sanchez-Mayen before realizing he was unresponsive. Further efforts were made to rouse him but to no avail; the officers dragged his body out of the van, during which he suffered head trauma from the door, the bumper, and the concrete floor.

Sanchez-Mayen was told the incident left him as a quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury and in need of a double leg amputation above the knee. He is now suing Officer Gaddis for malicious prosecution and false arrest, as the trespassing charges were dropped. He is also suing Officer Thacker for intentional battery and excessive force and the city for poor training.