GILROY
– A Rosanna Street resident says a city police officer
pepper-sprayed her and her 5-month-old daughter in their home on
the night of Oct. 17.
GILROY – A Rosanna Street resident says a city police officer pepper-sprayed her and her 5-month-old daughter in their home on the night of Oct. 17.
Police say the officer pepper-sprayed Virginia Diaz’s pit bull dog, not her or her daughter. According to a police report, Diaz, 20, refused to let officers enter her house and, after she finally opened the door, closed it on an officer’s foot. The report also says Diaz struggled with officers.
Diaz picked up a complaint form on the morning of Oct. 20 from the Gilroy Police Department and said Thursday she planned to file it soon. She has been looking for a lawyer, she added, albeit one who will work without fee, since her family income is low.
Police were responding to a neighbor’s report of possible domestic violence at the 7130 Rosanna St. residence. This was false, Diaz said, because her husband was not home at the time; she and her daughter were alone in the house, asleep.
According to Diaz, police were knocking on her door for perhaps 15 minutes before she woke up and opened it, her daughter in her arms. She said she was wearing a shirt and underwear and told police she wanted to get dressed before she talked to them. When police demanded she talk right away, she says she asked them sarcastically whether they wanted to watch her dress. She described herself as “a little upset” at the time, but not combative.
It was then the officer pepper-sprayed Diaz and her daughter from about five feet away, she said. Her dog was behind her at the time, she said. One officer immediately “ripped my daughter out of my arms,” she said, and several others tackled her.
“I have cuts and bruises from them,” she said.
Police arrested Diaz that night, took her daughter and placed the child with county Child Protective Services, which returned her to Diaz on Tuesday. The daughter was kept in a temporary foster home during those four days, Diaz said.
Police charged Diaz with child endangerment (a felony or a misdemeanor), assaulting a police officer (a felony) and resisting arrest (a misdemeanor), but these charges are now “on the back burner,” Deputy District Attorney Dan Fehderau said Friday from his San Jose office. Fehderau said he decided to first give CPS a chance to examine the family’s situation before pressing charges and potentially separating the child from her mother for a longer time.
“If there are further issues with her and her child or further criminal activities, this case could be resurrected for further charges,” Fehderau said. “It’s not a decision that there isn’t a crime or that she wasn’t resisting. … My interest was, let’s look at the child first and that situation.”
Nearly a week later, on Thursday, Diaz said she and her daughter still had raspy voices as a result of the spray in their lungs, though she admitted she had not yet been to a doctor.
