SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — Attorneys representing Sacramento County, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and former Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones said in court documents filed Tuesday they want the lawsuit against their clients dismissed.
48-year-old Sherrano Stingley died in the hospital 10 days after going unconscious during a Dec. 6, 2022 arrest by Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies. The sheriff’s office says they were responding to a report of a man under someone’s truck in a Sacramento County neighborhood. Stingley’s family says he was having a mental health crisis and was searching for his daughter’s home in the same neighborhood, where Stingley was living at the time.
Body camera video shows he initially complied with deputies, but then a struggle started. By the fourth minute, Stingley appeared to pass out.
In February, Stingley’s family and their lawyer, Sacramento-based civil rights attorney Mark Merin, filed a complaint for violations of civil and constitutional rights in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, thereby launching a lawsuit against Sacramento County, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and now-former Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, who was in charge at the time of Stingley’s death.
They claim the deputies who arrested Stingley — and by extension, the sheriff's office, sheriff and county — violated Stingley's civil and constitutional rights.
The Stingley family’s lawsuit lays out 13 claims of wrongdoing, ranging from wrongful death and negligence to denial of medical care and excessive force.
On Tuesday, attorneys representing the county, sheriff’s office and former sheriff filed a motion to dismiss/motion to strike the claims. At a court appearance on May 4, the document says attorneys plan to ask U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley to dismiss and strike the claims against their clients.
Attorneys argue, among other points, that the Stingley family’s complaint failed to point to a particular “policy or custom that was the moving force behind the constitutional violations alleged. The Complaint also fails to identify the training practices at issue, how those practices were deficient, how those practices caused [Stingley’s] harm, and how the deficiency amounts to deliberate indifference.”
They argue the claims against former sheriff Scott Jones are “duplicative and redundant to the claims against” the county and sheriff’s office.
They also argue the lawsuit fails to make the case that deputies violated Stingley’s rights under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, calling the complaint, “devoid of any facts, as none exist, demonstrating that the deputies had the time and opportunity to assess the situation and potentially employ any accommodations to Decedent.”
Read the Stingley family’s lawsuit HERE.
ABC10 is in touch with the Stingley family’s attorney Mark Merin for a response to the county’s response. Stay with ABC10 for updates in this developing story.
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