Sacramento Deputy Captured on Video Shoving Woman Outside Jail

Surveillance and body camera footage released on the Sacramento County Sheriff Department’s website shows a deputy pushing a woman outside the Main Jail facility on Oct. 7, 2024.

Five additional uniformed deputies can be seen watching as the woman cries out and falls heavily to the ground. She remains there for a minute and a half until the footage ends.

The sheriff’s department did not respond to KQED’s multiple requests for comment. A department spokesperson told Sacramento-based Fox 40 that the deputy had been placed on leave. The video release contains no written records, and it is unclear when they were posted.

Paul Curtis, chair of Sacramento’s Sheriff Community Review Commission, said he has asked the county’s inspector general to investigate.

The video is further evidence of troubling conditions at the Sacramento County Main Jail, where at least five people have died since May 2024, despite a consent decree that’s been in effect since 2020. A January report from court-appointed medical experts found “serious system and individual performance issues,” including “callous deliberate indifference” toward a man who died of a drug overdose while in custody on May 12, 2024.

“ When we watched the incident of the woman being thrown out of the jail, it had a similar feeling,” said attorney Patrick Booth of the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office, which filed a class action lawsuit alleging poor treatment, neglect and inhumane conditions at the jail in 2018, leading to the consent decree.

The circumstances surrounding the unnamed woman’s booking and release from the jail aren’t completely clear. In bodycam and surveillance footage posted to the agency’s transparency portal, the woman’s face is redacted, and KQED has not been able to identify her.

“I wish I knew her name,” said activist Kari Hamilton from Decarcerate Sacramento, a coalition working to prevent jail expansions. “I wish I could lift her up and let her know that people care.”

Hamilton, who spent time in the Main Jail as a pre-trial detainee between 2014 and 2017, said the video indicates a persistent culture problem at the facility that goes beyond the deputy who shoved the woman.

“The rest of the officers there also should have some compassion for people, and they should have said something and did something,” she said.

Audio from the body camera suggests that the woman was being released from custody and had an upcoming court date related to an incident at a grocery store. She speaks English with an accent, and it is sometimes difficult to follow her train of thought. She talks about people “trespassing in our backyards,” and as the deputy encourages her to sign documents related to her court appearance, she appears confused.

“I don’t want the court,” she says.

“If you don’t agree to go to court, you don’t go home,” another deputy says.

As an officer tries to keep her focused on signing the remaining paperwork, the woman repeatedly asks deputies to listen to her.

“You need to stop fucking talking and listen to us,” the officer says.

“Try to be civilized,” she responds.

About seven minutes into the video, the deputy finishes the paperwork and returns her personal items.

“ Start walking this way,” the officer says, putting his hand on her upper arm to move her toward the door.

“Don’t push me,” she says and moves her elbow to get out of his grasp.

“Shut the fuck up,” the officer responds, pinning her left hand behind her back.

Another deputy takes her right shoulder, and they forcibly march her through the facility toward the door. She repeatedly asks what they are doing.

“ We’re escorting you outside because you can’t go without assaulting my partner,” the other deputy says.

“Thank you, have a good night,” the officer says as he shoves her out the main entrance of the building at 11:16 p.m. Surveillance footage from outside the jail shows the force of the push, sending her to the ground, knocking paperwork from her hand.

“Oof,” a deputy can be heard saying on a body cam as they walk back into the jail.

“This video was a little glimpse into the kind of callousness that we think is standard operating practice in many jails across the state,” said Margot Mendelson of the Prison Law Office.

This story has been updated to remove the identity of an officer.