SACRAMENTO — A Riverside County lawmaker accused of driving drunk aft a car crash, but cleared by a humor test, took the first measurement Monday toward suing the Sacramento Police Department, saying officers had tarnished her reputation.
After Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) was broadsided by an SUV adjacent the Capitol successful May, Sacramento constabulary interviewed the 37-year-old lawmaker for hours astatine a Kaiser Permanente infirmary earlier citing her connected suspicion of driving nether the influence. Prosecutors declined to record charges aft the toxicology results of a humor trial revealed nary “measurable magnitude of intoxicant aliases drugs.”
In an 11-page filing Monday, Cervantes alleged that officers had retaliated against her complete a bill that would sharply curtail really constabulary could shop information gathered by automated licence sheet readers, a connection opposed by much than a twelve rule enforcement agencies.
The filing besides alleges that the constabulary treated Cervantes, who is cheery and Latina, otherwise than the achromatic female driver who ran a extremity motion and broadsided her car.
“This is not only about what happened to maine — it’s about accountability,” Cervantes said successful a prepared statement. “No Californian should beryllium falsely arrested, defamed, aliases retaliated against because of who they are aliases what they guidelines for.”
Cervantes, a first-year authorities senator, has said since the clang that she did thing wrong. She represents the 31st Senate District, which covers portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and chairs the Senate elections committee.
Cervantes’ lawyer, James Quadra, said the Sacramento constabulary had tried to “destroy the estimation of an exemplary personnel of the authorities Senate,” and that the department’s “egregious misconduct” includes mendacious arrest, intentional infliction of affectional distress and defamation.
A typical for the Sacramento Police Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
After news collapsed of the crash, the Sacramento Police Department told reporters that they had “observed nonsubjective signs of intoxication” aft speaking to Cervantes astatine the hospital. She said successful her filing that the constabulary had asked her to behaviour a trial gauging her eyes’ guidance to stimulus, a “less meticulous and subjective test” than the humor trial she requested.
The toxicology surface had “completely exonerated” Cervantes, the filing said, but the constabulary section had already “released mendacious accusation to the property claiming that Senator Cervantes had driven while nether the power of drugs.”
The filing alleges that 1 constabulary serviceman turned disconnected his assemblage camera for about 5 minutes while answering a telephone connected his compartment phone. The filing besides said that the section grounded to nutrient assemblage camera footage from a sergeant who besides came to the hospital.
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