Police pepper-spray handcuffed teen twice in back of patrol car, Colorado lawsuit says

A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a 17-year-old who says police officers in Colorado pepper-sprayed her twice inside a patrol car because she wouldn’t calm down.

Sgt. Gregory Wilhelmi and officers Ryan Yoshimiya and Briana Ragsdale of the Colorado Springs Police Department used excessive force when handcuffing the teen and placing her in the back of a patrol car, where they used pepper spray on her then closed the doors, according to the lawsuit filed this week in El Paso County District Court.

McClatchy News has reached out to the Colorado Springs Police Department and Colorado Springs Police Protective Association for comment and is awaiting a response.

The incident began to unfold around 3 a.m. on Oct. 17, 2020 when Colorado Springs police were dispatched to an apartment complex, after a person reported hearing an argument, according to the lawsuit.

Officers Yoshimiya and Ragsdale arrived at the scene and saw the teen and her boyfriend talking.

According to the lawsuit, the teen was “emotionally distraught” and “hesitant” to talk to officers. The teen’s brother told police that she had been drinking and a victim of sexual assault in the past.

The teen’s brother told police he would get her back inside the apartment, and the officers allowed him to do so, according to the lawsuit.

About 45 minutes later, someone called the police saying that a woman was “screaming and crying” at the same place, according to the lawsuit.

Officers Yoshimiya and Ragsdale returned to the apartment and saw the teen sitting on the street in a “distraught state” and “ordered her to calm down and sit down,” according to the lawsuit. A friend of the teen told officers she was upset because her boyfriend left.

After some time of refusing to cooperate with police, the teen told officer Ragsdale to arrest her and she put her hands behind her back, according to the lawsuit.

She continued to be uncooperative with police, and was “forcefully pushed into the side of the police car,” according to the lawsuit. That’s when officer Yoshimiya pushed the teen against the police car and touched her leg, which “triggered a trauma response and extreme emotional distress” due to her past sexual assault, the lawsuit says.

As the officers placed her in the back of the police car she screamed “I’m a rape victim, 2015… Give me my phone. I’m a minor. Give me my mom,” the lawsuit states.

Now sitting in the backseat, she kicked at the door as Sgt. Wilhelmi arrived and asked the officers, “Has she been sprayed?” according to the lawsuit.

Officer Yoshimiya said, “No, not yet.” Wilihelmi told the officer to “spray her,” the lawsuit says.

After officer Yoshimiya warned the teen that if she kept kicking the door she would get pepper-sprayed, Sgt. Wilhelmi sprayed the teen twice — the first spray hitting her in the forehead and the second hitting her eyes and nose, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that both officer Yoshmiya and Ragsdale knew that pepper-spraying the teen was unreasonable but “failed to intervene.”

The 17-year-old was not provided with water to flush out her eyes or nose, even as she pleaded for help.

“Please,” “It hurts,” “I need water,” “I need my mom,” the teen said according to the lawsuit.

Paramedics arrived 10 minutes later and helped the teen flush some of the pepper spray out of her eyes, according to the lawsuit.

She was taken to the police station and released to her mother, the lawsuit states.

The teen wants the officers involved to be held accountable for their actions, according to 9news.

She is seeking damages for “physical and mental pain, humiliation, fear, anxiety, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of liberty, privacy and sense of security.”

She also wants an apology from police, the lawsuit says, as well as policy changes and mandatory training to prevent similar misconduct moving forward.

“So the best I can do is try to wake up the people of Colorado Springs with a gigantic jury verdict that they are going to have to pay for,” the teen’s lawyer David Lane said according to 9news.

Colorado Springs is about 70 miles south of Denver.

This story was originally published October 18, 2022 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Police pepper-spray handcuffed teen twice in back of patrol car, Colorado lawsuit says."