Alameda County Sheriff's Office hit with suit alleging excessive force

A Bay Area law firm that bills itself as "Lawyers For The People" announced Thursday the filing of a civil rights lawsuit against five Alameda County sheriff's deputies and described the case in dramatic fashion. 

According to the lawyers at the firm Pointer & Buelna LLP, "A hospitalized woman waiting for a CT scan to diagnose a potential head injury was punched in her head several times, grabbed by the throat and slammed onto a hospital bed by Alameda County sheriff's deputies, who were laser focused on hauling her to jail without providing her with federal mandated screening."

During a press conference Thursday, the lawyers presented a video with apparent footage from body cameras that appeared to show several vivid and disturbing scenes.

The plaintiff's complaint, filed Thursday in federal court, told the story in equally powerful fashion.

According to the filing, the matter began on Aug. 9, 2022, when Malia Ashad was in court for a hearing in a civil case at Alameda County Superior Court's Hayward Hall of Justice. 

Ashad allegedly entered the courtroom and sat in the back row when a person, against whom Ashad had filed for a restraining order, "suddenly and without provocation" approached and hit Ashad repeatedly in the face and head with a cellphone. 

Defending herself, Ashad grabbed the attacker's hair. One of the defendant deputies, serving as a courtroom deputy, ran to break up the altercation.

He allegedly grabbed Ashad's thumb and pulled it sharply backward and then "proceeded to contort Ms. Ashad's arm behind her back into an unnatural position while forcing her to bend face forward over a courtroom chair as he placed her in handcuffs," according to the complaint.

The deputy allegedly pushed her into the hallway where Ashad lost her balance and fell, hitting her head on a table. According to the court filing, she was bleeding, and then began a seizure and lost consciousness. Another deputy arrived and told her she was under arrest. 

Medical personnel arrived and took her to Kaiser Permanente's San Leandro Medical Center emergency room. The emergency room doctor ordered a CT scan. 

The court filing says that one of the deputies was "seemingly unhappy" at the prospect that the scan would delay taking Ashad to jail and told her that she would not get the scan. 

At this point, Ashad was allegedly handcuffed to the hospital bed and when she protested, another deputy began grabbing her "by the throat and viciously pinning her to the hospital bed."  Then she was "savagely punched" in the head, "causing her to lose consciousness once again," the complaint said.

The day's drama was not complete.

She was placed in a wheelchair where the struggle continued and one of the deputies "lunged forward and punched Ms. Ashad directly in her head. The force of the punch was so great that it toppled the wheelchair over, sending Ms. Ashad to the floor, where she hit her head again," the complaint said, alleging that Ashad suffered "physical injury, emotional distress, pain and suffering, loss of income, medical expenses, fear, trauma, [and] humiliation."

Ashad's lawsuit against the deputies alleges they used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. 

The defendants' conduct is described as "willful, malicious, intentional, deliberate, or in reckless disregard of [Ashad's] constitutionally protected rights."

The complaint named Ryan Connolly, Collin Lenahan, Robinderpal Hayer, Ruth Jones and Matthew Simon, all identified as deputies in the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, as defendants.

While the video shown at Thursday's press conference contained only excerpts from footage of the events, individual clips show a woman in the courtroom being repeatedly hit by an assailant and then being taken from the courtroom by officials. The clips include scenes at the hospital and the cries of Ashad during a struggle.

At the press conference, the lawyers repeatedly described the deputies' conduct as "outrageous" and emphasized that Ashad was not the initiator of the courtroom attack but the victim.

Particularly egregious, they said, was the fact that the defendants -- allegedly without medical licenses -- tried to override the medical decisions at the hospital. 

Ashad's lead lawyer Adante Pointer asked rhetorically, "How do they live with themselves?"  

In his view, the deputies' most important tool should have been "verbal de-escalation" of the situation, not to "beat up on a handcuffed mother of two children."

He called the defendants' conduct "thuggish" and said that he believed the "deputies should be in a courtroom in handcuffs."

Pointer said that criminal charges against Ashad for attacking an officer were dismissed. 

According to Pointer, the deputies have not been disciplined.

The sheriff's office said what’s been released isn’t the full story. In a statement, the office said, "The released clips are a limited and skewed depiction of the incident and do not represent the totality of what occurred."

They also insist the complainant received appropriate medical treatment during the incident.

NBC Bay Area's Jodi Hernandez contributed to this report.