Officer Punished in Arrest of Homeless Woman Files Suit

A police officer, punished for his part in allowing a mentally disturbed woman to remain naked in front of the station for nearly an hour, has filed a lawsuit against the department saying that he was unfairly disciplined.

Neither the city nor the Police Department would give details of the incident.

But department sources said it centered on a homeless and mentally ill woman who was “paraded back and forth in front” of officers after her November 1996 arrest.

Police Chief Richard Thomas and City Atty. Bob Boehm issued a written statement about the incident involving Officer Mark Coronado, saying that although an investigation found no evidence of sexual misconduct, Coronado and several other officers mishandled the arrest.

“The woman was not treated with the dignity and respect that a citizen should expect while in police custody,” the statement said. “The Department is embarrassed and saddened by the manner in which a few of our personnel handled this incident.”

Coronado, a 14-year veteran who has worked as a field training officer and an investigator of outlaw motorcycle gangs, could not be reached for comment.

But Corey Glave, Coronado’s attorney, confirmed that his client and five other officers were disciplined because of the incident.

“There was an initial complaint by someone that they should have put clothes on her sooner, but they didn’t know all the facts,” Glave said.

The woman, who was later taken to the county’s mental health agency for observation, told investigators about a month after the incident that she had been treated with respect by the officer, Glave said.

He said Coronado was unjustly demoted from the rank of corporal and suspended without pay for more than two weeks for his role in the incident.

Coronado’s punishment was solely due to a joke he made involving a fake ink impression of a woman’s breast that he showed to several female police dispatchers and other officers, Glave said.

Coronado’s superior officer at the time, Lt. Roger Nustad, who investigated the incident, actually participated in and approved of the joke, Glave said.

But department officials denied that Nustad in any way took part in the joke.

Coronado’s lawsuit does not give many details of the arrest, but explains that he went to the scene when he heard the call because he was the acting supervisor on duty.

“At the scene, Coronado observed a nude woman in a patrol car,” the suit states. “After a few minutes, the woman was taken into the police station where Coronado attempted to obtain information from her in order to contact someone to pick her up or bring her clothes. Shortly thereafter an officer brought in a bag containing the woman’s clothes. Coronado demanded that the woman put the clothes on and the woman complied.”

The suit was filed last month after Coronado and his attorneys appealed their case in front of the Civil Service Commission, attorney Glave said. The commission has not yet ruled on the appeal, he said.

In the lawsuit, Coronado said he was denied due process during an internal affairs investigation of the incident. Specifically, he claimed the department never allowed him to view evidence against him and did not allow him a proper appeal.

Coronado’s attorney also argued that some of the statements used against his client were not accurately transcribed. In addition, Glave said, some of the tape recordings of radio calls the night of the incident were edited to make his client look bad.

Department sources say the woman had been detained earlier in the evening. She wanted to be taken to the jail but was released, the source said. Then sometime after midnight, she was spotted standing naked in front of the Police Department headquarters on Dowell Drive.

An officer arrived and handcuffed the woman, the source said. He called other officers, and soon several male officers in patrol cars were at the scene. A female officer, who radioed that she could help, was told that she was not needed, the source said.

Meanwhile the naked woman was placed in the back seat of one of the cars with the car light turned on so that she could be seen, the source said. Then she was taken from that car and walked to another patrol car, and then another. Each time she was moved she was watched by several officers and each time the car lights were turned on so that she could be seen, the source said.

At no time did any of the officers offer to cover the woman.

“She is being paraded back and forth in front of these officers,” the source said. “Of course, they say it had nothing to do with the fact that she has large breasts, is reasonably young and reasonably attractive.”

At some point Coronado got on the radio and suggested that the woman be taken to Ventura County Mental Health for observation, the source said. But Coronado changed his mind and told the officers to keep the woman at the scene until he arrived and she was checked for possible drug or alcohol use, the source said.

By the time Coronado arrived an officer had found the woman’s clothes, but she was not allowed to dress, the source said.

Glave said Coronado did not know that the woman’s clothes had been found or that the department had spare clothes they could provide her. Coronado was also attempting to determine if the woman was mentally disturbed and either a threat to herself or to others, Glave said.

“What happened is they were trying to determine if she was under the influence, or if she could be detained for anything,” Glave said.

Coronado and another officer then took the woman to the department holding cell, the source said. While she was being brought into the booking area a dispatcher saw the woman on a video monitor and called down to Coronado to let her get dressed, the source said.

“From the first call until that point was about 50 minutes,” the source said. “Fifty minutes that she was paraded around like that. Now some of these guys argued that she took her clothes off and wasn’t complaining about being naked, but we have a bigger responsibility to treat every person with a certain amount of dignity. And in this case this is a woman that was mentally disturbed; there is even more of a responsibility to help her.”

The woman was allowed to put her clothes on and she was booked, the source said.

As a joke Coronado came up to the dispatch room to show the dispatchers, who are mostly women, a print he claimed to have obtained from the woman. On a piece of paper he had created an ink impression of a breast, the source said. When he came up to the dispatch room he ran into Nustad, who was getting ready to come on duty, and showed the print to him, the source said.

Coronado’s lawsuit states that Nustad discussed the joke with him and helped him plan it, and that Nustad received a written reprimand for his participation.

But in their written statement, department officials said Nustad was not involved in the incident and was never disciplined for it.

Kathleen Payne, a member of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Ventura County, said she was shocked by the woman’s treatment.

“Where is the human kindness and human decency in that?” she asked. “Oftentimes these people have no one else to turn to and they end up in the hands of police who are supposed to protect and serve. They should be responsible for them like they were their father. A father wouldn’t let his daughter go around undressed like that. It’s not right.”