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Fri, 26 Dec 1997

A Guerneville man is suing the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department for $2 million over an incident that resulted in his being found guilty of resisting arrest in his own home. Richard Gilmore, a home loan specialist with a Santa Rosa firm, said the incident which resulted in his arrest and conviction would never have happened if Guerneville sub-station deputies had handled the routine noise complaint in a more professional manner. The claim against county police, filed by Gilmore's lawyer Michael Cantarutti on December 15, accuses Deputies Steven Satterwhite and Wade Eubanks of violating Gilmore's civil rights. He is seeking restitution for injury, emotional distress, property damage, libel, professional embarassment and physical disability.

"After respounding to the wrong house in a 911 call about a person screaming, officers entered property during a dinner party without permission by breaking through a fence barrier, misstated their purpose, and engaged home co-owner in a scuffle without provocation or cause", reads the complaint. A Sonoma County Municipal Court jury December 12 found Gilmore guilty of resisting arrest in the incident, but also said they were unhappy that the case was ever brought to trial.

In general, the jury did not feel particularly comfortable with what we were charged to do, said jury foreman Lyle Keseker-Dotson, an independent Catholic priest who works in crisis intervention. "Our general perspective is that this should never have happened."

But, despite their reservations, jurors agreed that Gilmore had technically violated the law when he covered his face with his hands while two Guerneville substation deputies attempted to handcuff and arrest him at his home October 18. Municipal Court Judge John Gallagher, a retired judge on temporary assignment, ordered Gilmore to pay a $500 fine, but did not sentence him to jail time. He could have sentenced him to up to one year in jail and up to $1,000 in fines.

The charge stemmed from an incident at the Guerneville home that Gilmore shares with his partner Richard Courtier. According to police reports and testimony at the trial, Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputies Steve Satterwhite, Wade Eubanks and Spencer Crux walked into the back yard of the couple's home in response to a complaint about noise coming from a residence in the neighborhood. Deputies said they found a dinner party with loud music and people talking and singing on the couple's back deck. After one of the party guests quickly turned the music down, Gilmore was belligerent, hostile and argumentative, with police, according to deputies, when they asked for his name in order to issue a first warning about the loud music. When Gilmore left the deck to walk inside his home, Satterwhite followed him, initiating a struggle to handcuff and arrest Gilmore that lasted nine to 10 minutes. According to police testimony, Satterwhite and Eubanks used pain holds, punches and pushing and shoving to subdue Gilmore, who never hit the deputies, but used his hands to protect his body. Nobody was seriously injured in the scuffle.

"Why this one lasted so long was I was trying to be extra careful not to hurt Mr. Gilmore", said Deputy Eubanks. But some jurors questioned whether the incident should have happened at all. According to a tape of the 911 call that brought police to the men's home and testimony by the neighbor who made the call, the deputies were in the wrong place. When she called 911, the neighbor, Lisa Keyes did not make any reference to loud music, but expressed concern about a woman screaming at a residence across the street and several houses down from Gilmore and Courtier. "It sounded like she was being killed, to tell the truth," Keyes said incourt. The jury foreman said he didn't understand why the deputies focused their attentions on Gilmore instead of looking for the screaming woman.

"It was completely inappropriate," commented Keseker-Dotson. "Knowing that some woman down the street was never attended to. It's really sick. It's really horrifying." Keseker-Dotson also criticized the way deputies responded to Gilmore.

"This could have been handled better. They did not have - or did not use - skills for diffusing a tense situation," he said. Sergeant Dave Sederholm, who is in charge of the Guerneville substation, was not willing to comment on the case. Sheriff James Piccinini said he could not comment because he had not yet seen the lawsuit. Daphne Beletsis of the Sonoma County Human Rights Commission said her group is waiting for further information to determine whether or not to pursue an investigation of the incident.

This article was originally published in We the People, a gay/lesbian/bi/transgender paper serving the north coast of California. Versions of both articles (see also Deputies Attack Gay Man, 12/26/97) were also published in the Russian River Monthly, a newspaper which serves rural west Sonoma County. Following the publication of the first article about this incident, Sheriff James Piccinini of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department decided to participate in a meeting of the Russian River committee of the county's Human Rights Commission's Hate Crimes Network, to address this incident and other police issues.