VALLEJO – A woman who fled from a Vallejo police officer and crashed after a shoplifting incident in October had indicated she would comply before the officer forcibly pulled her from her car, slammed her against a cement truck and punched her in the face, body camera obtained by the Vallejo Sun shows.

A passenger in the car fled while Officer Colin Eaton was arresting the driver, identified as 19-year-old Maiya Green. Two bystanders grabbed the second woman and held her down. The body camera video shows her say repeatedly that she can’t breathe, but Eaton left her lying face down on the pavement.

The Oct. 13 incident was caught on video by a bystander and went viral on TikTok. Days later, when state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a new stipulated judgment for Vallejo police reform, Bonta acknowledged he had seen the video and said it was “disturbing” and would be investigated.

But the city of Vallejo refused to release body camera video, saying that Green’s injuries were not severe enough to require its release under the law. The Vallejo Sun separately obtained Eaton’s body camera video, dash camera video and written report. 

Vallejo police Sgt. Rashad Hollis declined to comment on the content of the videos, but said that the use of force would be evaluated by a review board. He said he could not provide the status of the review or any of the board’s findings. Eaton has a history of force complaints and discipline and was one of six officers who shot and killed Willie McCoy in 2019.

Driver was shoplifting at Kohl’s

Police said that the incident that led to the viral video started when loss prevention staff at the Kohl’s department store at 1190 Admiral Callaghan Lane flagged Eaton down and pointed to a blue Nissan leaving the parking lot.

When Eaton tried to stop the Nissan, the driver fled. Eaton pursued the car until the driver ran a red light and collided with an SUV and a cement truck. Police said that a mother and her two four-year-old sons were in the SUV. The crash injured the mother but the two children were not hurt.

The body camera and dash camera video shows Eaton run to the crashed car and point his gun at the passenger. He wrote in his report that he could see the driver “frantically texting on her phone, and also heard her yelling on her phone.” 

In the video, he yelled, “Get off the phone” and “put your phone down” before circling to the driver’s door.

The video shows Eaton open the door to arrest the driver. The air bags had deployed. Eaton immediately grabbed the driver’s wrist. “Get out of the car,” he said. “I’m getting out,” she responded. “Get out of the car now,” he said again, as she stepped out. “What are you grabbing me like that for?” she said.

Eaton then swung the driver around by the wrist, striking the cement truck. As she was standing next to him, he said, “Get out of the car now or I’m going to have to hurt you.” He then threw her to the ground and punched her in the face.

In his report, Eaton wrote that the driver had “immediately tried to break my grip and run” when she got out of the car. “I had a firm hold and redirected her momentum in a circular motion and attempted to take her down to the ground. Unfortunately, a large cement truck that [her] car had blocked was in our way and stopped her momentum.”

While Eaton was arresting the driver, the passenger in the Nissan fled. Two bystanders grabbed her and held her down. The video shows Eaton handcuff the driver and put her in his car, then drive to the two men who were holding the passenger face down on the pavement. As he arrived, one of the men appeared to be putting his weight on her back. She told Eaton repeatedly that she couldn’t breathe. “OK that’s great,” Eaton responded.

“You’re healthy enough to go shoplifting,” Eaton said as he put the passenger in a patrol car. 

A separate video shows that later, the passenger was taken to a hospital in an ambulance. When another officer asked Eaton to verify with Kohl’s that the two women were involved in a theft from the store, Eaton responded, “I recognize those two bitches just from the emails.”

Police said they found about $2,000 of suspected stolen merchandise in the Nissan. Police said the store also implicated the two women in a previous theft in September. Green, the driver, was on felony probation for grand theft and shoplifting, and had been arrested earlier in the month for stealing approximately $30,000 worth of merchandise from another business, according to police.

During a court hearing on Oct. 31, Green pleaded no contest to grand theft and evading police. The evading charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and a charge of hit-and-run causing injury was dismissed as part of a plea deal. Green was sentenced to 364 days in jail. During the October hearing, Solano County Superior Court Judge Robert Bowers expressed concern over her youth and the extent of her legal troubles and said that he wanted to avoid sending her to prison.

History of force complaints

The brief TikTok video of the incident was widely reported by local TV media outlets and raised questions about Eaton’s use of force during the incident, which the department defended. It was also one of several incidents which raised questions about the department’s pursuit practices, as two bystanders have been killed in crashes during Vallejo police pursuits so far this year. National policing experts recommend that officers do not engage in pursuits of nonviolent offenses such as shoplifting and instead gather information to follow up later because of the risk of injury.

Eaton himself has a history of use of force complaints. In 2019, he fired 13 of the 55 bullets fired into McCoy’s silver Mercedes on Feb. 9, 2019, more than any other officer. Eaton was not disciplined for that incident.

About two months later, Eaton was one of two officers who arrested McCoy’s niece Deyana Jenkins. A lawsuit alleges that Eaton and Officer Jordan Patzer – another officer who killed McCoy – held Jenkins at gunpoint, dragged her out of the car, threw her on the ground and Tased her. A bystander recorded the events on a cell phone.

Jenkins was arrested and taken to jail, but the Solano County District Attorney’s office didn’t charge her with a crime. Jenkins sued the department and her lawsuit is still pending.

Former police Capt. John Whitney was alarmed by video of Jenkins’ arrest and brought it to the attention of then-police Chief Andrew Bidou, but the officers were not disciplined for the incident, according to deposition testimony in Whitney’s lawsuit. 

Whitney also sought accountability for officers’ practice of bending the tips of their badges following a shooting but was fired after he raised concerns with city leaders. He eventually went public with the scandal, sued the department, and settled his lawsuit for $900,000.

Eaton was suspended for stepping on a man’s head during an arrest on April 19, 2020. Eaton had responded to a call of a man exposing himself. As officers arrived, the man had his pants halfway down.

Eaton pulled out his baton as he approached the man and told him “Get down right now, I will fuck you up. Sit down, I will fuck you up.”

Another officer also arrived, whose name is redacted in reports. She told investigators she ordered the man to sit down several times and pushed him over to handcuff him. The other officer told investigators that the man stiffened his limbs to prevent from being handcuffed. Eaton hit the man once with a baton.

According to the officers, the suspect then complied, but Eaton put his foot on the man’s head “to prevent him from moving about and resisting further.”

An initial internal investigation conducted by then-Sgt. Sanjay Ramrakha only found that Eaton violated the department’s policies on discourteous and disrespectful treatment as well as profane language. 

Ramrakha did not, however, find that Eaton violated the use of force policy for putting his boot on the man’s head. Instead, then-Deputy Chief Michael Kihmm made that determination after he reviewed the case. Kihmm was himself fired in 2021.