Palo Alto

Former Palo Alto PD officer pleads guilty to misdemeanors after slamming man's head into car windshield

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Stemming from the violent arrest of a city resident five years ago, a former Palo Alto police officer pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor criminal charges Tuesday for assault by a public officer and filing a false police report. Hilda Gutierrez reports.

A former Palo Alto police officer pled guilty to two criminal charges Tuesday stemming from the violent arrest of a resident.

The case goes back to an incident in 2018.

Palo Alto police Sergeant Wayne Benitez was one of the officers in this surveillance video pulling Gustavo Alvarez from his home after an officer said he spotted Alvarez driving with a possibly suspended license.

The video shows Benitez apparently slamming the handcuffed man’s head into a car windshield. 

Then later, Benitez’s body-worn microphone captures the officer appearing to mock Alvarez for being gay and encouraging forceful arrests.

“See how quickly they behave once we put our foot down? And that’s what we don’t do enough of,” Benitez is heard saying. “We’re not gonna get s*** on our here by these fricking low-lifes”

Benitez left Palo Alto PD after the incident and in 2019, they paid Alvarez nearly $600,000 to settle his civil suit.

But prosecutors filed two misdemeanor charges against Benitez for “assault by a public officer” and “filing a false police report.”  

Alvarez’s attorney says he believes Benitez deserved to be charged with felonies, but is still glad to see some accountability.

“At the end of the day, I think it is a bit of justice for Mr. Alvarez. It doesn’t eliminate what has happened, we can’t ever erase history, but it does signal some amount of justice and accountability I think is long past due,” said Cody Salfen, Alvarez’s attorney.

NBC Bay Area reached out to Benitez’s attorney for comment, but never heard back

Benitez faces one year probation and has to go through anger management and LGBTQ sensitivity training.

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