October 4, 2022 — During an investigation last year into a collision where no one was hurt and no property was damaged, Ukiah police broke several bones in a man’s face and handcuffed a woman in her own home, even after she indicated she was willing to cooperate.
Officers had a case against Arturo Valdes, who was accused by another motorist of causing a minor accident in the parking lot of the Ross Department store a little after 6:30 pm on March 28. The victim didn’t speak English, but KZYX obtained police body camera video of him describing the incident to Ukiah Police Officer Daniel Parker with the help of a witness. The victim said he had stopped suddenly to avoid hitting pedestrians, when Valdes, who was behind him, bumped into him with a lifted black GMC truck. He said Valdes “said a bunch of bad things in English and Spanish,” and drove off fast, with a woman and two small children in the vehicle. He told Parker he wanted insurance information, and, according to his volunteer translator, and to “get him in trouble, because it’s not fair, he’s driving drunk with two kids in the back.” According to a written police report, the victim added in a followup interview that Valdes asked him if he wanted to fight.
Surveillance video from outside the Ross department store isn’t high quality, but it does show that a man matching Valdes’ distinct appearance did bump into another car that afternoon. But Valdes didn’t admit it, when Officer Eric Rodello and Sergeant Rondald Donahue questioned him. He said “no,” when officers asked if he had just been “involved in a little traffic collision,” and told them that his black truck was missing. Police found the truck about a block away from his home the next morning.
Valdes wasn’t the only one providing bad information. Police dispatch had reported erroneously that he was currently on DUI probation, though that had expired in December. And when Valdes said he wouldn’t answer any questions until his lawyer arrived, officers told him he didn’t have a right to an attorney.
Valdes’ attorney, Richard Middlebrook, says that was another piece of misinformation. “That is a flagrant lie, and a misstatement of almost every bit of case law, ever,” he remarked in an interview over the summer.
It’s hard to see exactly what happened in the next few minutes. Valdes walked away. The officers reached for him. He tried to shake them off and then to stand up as the three men flailed on the ground. It took about eleven seconds for Donahue to break Valdes’ nose and fracture his sinus and eye socket. Middlebrook said the couple’s private Ring camera footage provided a better view of what happened. Later that night at the hospital, Valdes and Donahue argued over what happened during that eleven seconds.
Valdes insisted that “I never intended to swing.”
Donahue said, “To me, it looked like you were. So I grabbed your hand and I tried to take you to the ground. You pushed forward. I actually fell backwards. I got up. We pushed you to the ground.”
“Both of you were on the ground. I never swung at you. I had every ability to swing at you, and I never did,” Valdes argued. “Like you said, he was flipped over, and I never.”
“You flipped him over your back,” Donahue said.
“Yes,” Valdes replied. “And I never, never, never intentioned to swing.”
Donahue assured Valdes that he would include that in his report, and true to his word, he made a note of it. Before taking him to the hospital, though, Rodello and Donahue knocked on the door to speak with Elizabeth Valdes, Arturo’s wife. She took a few steps backwards with her small son in her arms. I was not able to discern from the video that she was stumbling, but the officers judged that she was so intoxicated it would be in the child’s best interests for Officer Parker to care for him until CPS arrived.
“What happened with your husband, I apologize,” Donahue said. “That should never happen. I wish it would have went different. What I want you to do, though, please, just go ahead and put the baby down. My partner — actually, I have a little bit of blood on my hands, so I’m not gonna do anything.”
Elizabeth Valdes flinched and sobbed, “this is so horrible.”
Parker held the boy and tried to amuse him by giving him shiny police department stickers. After a few minutes, Elizabeth Valdes began to walk towards them slowly. She pressed her hands together for a few moments when she reached the man and her child, then held her hands out for him to give the baby back.
After warning her that she was about to be arrested, Rodello and Donahue cuffed her, without reading her rights or informing her of any charges. In his report, Rodello wrote that Elizabeth Valdes “continued to be uncooperative, and was upsetting the children.” But about twenty minutes later, he didn’t take her up on it when she told him she would provide the information he said he needed.
“Do you have insurance on the truck in there?” he asked.
“Of course I fucking do,” she told him.
“With the truck on it,” he specified. “I need that information.”
“Of course I fucking do,” she repeated. “Hey. Okay. So let my hands go, and I will go in the fucking house.”
She began to sob again, and he asked her, “What’s your daughter’s birthday?”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m asking you, what’s your daughter’s birthday?” he repeated.
Instead of going inside to get the insurance paperwork, as Valdes indicated she was ready to provide, Rodello locked her in the back of the patrol car. He appeared to hold her responsible for what he suspected her husband had done.
“This is so horrible,” she said again. “What do you need from me?”
“It’s horrible to drive with your kids in the car while you’re intoxicated,” he replied. “You didn’t do it, but your husband did.”
Back at the hospital, Arturo Valdes and Sgt Donahue continued their discussion.
“If you were in my shoes,” Valdes said.
“I would not resist,” Donahue responded. “Because I understand the law, and the law says you have a duty to comply.”“And I have a duty to preserve my rights, too,” Valdes told him.
Donahue’s reply was prescient: “If I put handcuffs on you though, and I transport you, and I’m wrong and you sue me, that’s how the system works.”
The Mendocino County District Attorney dismissed all charges against Elizabeth and Arturo Valdes on August 19, “in the interests of justice.” The couple is bringing a civil suit against the Ukiah Police Department, the City of Ukiah, and the officers involved.
The fourteen claims include false imprisonment, emotional distress, and assault and battery.