Disability Law United filed a California Public Records Act lawsuit against Sacramento County and Sheriff Jim Cooper on behalf of Lisa Daher, the widow and estate administrator of Jaime Naranjo, who was fatally shot by a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy in September 2022 after she called 911 seeking help for his mental health crisis. The suit argues that the Sheriff’s Office has unlawfully withheld records about the shooting and about the department’s broader pattern of responding to mental health crisis calls with lethal force, in violation of the Public Records Act and related state transparency statutes.
Ms. Daher called law enforcement on September 28, 2022, telling the dispatcher that her husband was suicidal and had a machete, but that she herself was not in danger. Deputy Andrew Seidel arrived alone and, within 23 seconds, shot and killed Mr. Naranjo. Other deputies who entered the home afterward deleted the couple’s home security footage and took Mr. Naranjo’s identification documents, leaving the home in disarray. Ms. Daher was barred from entering her own home for more than eight hours and, despite pleading with officers to retrieve her medication, was offered cigarettes instead. She was later billed roughly $7,000 for her husband’s ambulance transport and $47,000 for the medical care he received before he died.
DLU submitted 22 public records requests seeking the incident report, video and audio recordings, and the department’s policies and practices for responding to mental health crisis calls. The county produced only three records responsive to two of those requests, citing an “ongoing active investigation,” despite the shooting being nearly two years old at the time of DLU’s inquiry and well past the statutory windows California law allows for withholding records on that basis. Through records obtained so far, DLU has identified the deputy who shot Mr. Naranjo and found he had previously been suspended without pay and barred from training other officers for three years over an earlier use-of-force incident, and has documented more than ten other cases in which Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies responded to mental health crisis calls with lethal force.
The lawsuit sought a court order compelling the county to disclose the withheld records, a declaration that the county violated the Public Records Act, and attorneys’ fees. The records are intended to support a broader civil rights case DLU is developing over the department’s pattern of using lethal force against people in mental health crisis.
After the lawsuit was filed, the documents were produced.