The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s policy of permitting or even encouraging its deputies to deal aggressively with both suspects and subjects they encounter in the field is growing to be even more expensive than it already was. In the last two months, the deaths of two men at the hands of four deputies in separate incidents in 2023 and 2024 has resulted in tentative settlements of $57 million after the families of the deceased sued the deputies, the sheriff’s department and the county over what they contended were wrongful deaths.
In both cases, each of the deceased men were themselves carrying on in a way that arguably constituted a potential public threat. Despite that being a factor in the fatal outcomes of the encounters in question, the escalation in the deputies’ reaction to the circumstance in one of the cases that went before a jury was deemed to be an entirely out-of-proportion overreaction to what was only a mildly hazardous situation. In the other case, which was settled short of a jury trial, the county’s legal team was convinced a jury was likely to take a dim view of the fatal use of force given the entire context of what occurred.
Settled prior to trial was the lawsuit brought against the department and the county in the death of Keith Vinyard.
On March 23, 2004 at roughly 9:50 p.m. in Hesperia, Keith Vinyard was shot and killed after leading sheriff’s deputies on a pursuit. The pursuit evolved out of a traffic stop, during which deputies sought to take Vinyard into custody on domestic violence arrest warrant. In fleeing, according to the department, Vinyard drove recklessly. The pursuit ended within the vicinity of the 15400 block of Halinor Street, at which point Vinyard refused to comply with commands made by a deputy, according to the department. During that exchange, according to the department, Vinyard threatened to shoot the deputy. It was subsequently determined that Vinyard was not in possession of a gun. Vinyard did, however, according to the department, arm himself with a “large metal object” as other deputies arrived on scene.
As that was taking place, according to one of the deputies, a second deputy and a third deputy opened fire on Vinyard after a first deputy discharged his service gun, even though one of those deputies did not consider Vinyard at that moment represented a threat, yet considered it necessary for the deputies on the scene to act in unison because the threshold of a use of deadly force was occurring.
On April 4, 2024, the California Attorney General’s Office had initiated a review of Vinyard’s shooting under California Government Code Section 12525.3, which requires that the California Department of Justice serve as an independent agency to investigate statewide police officer shootings resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian.
While the sheriff’s department maintained that Vinyard was in possession of a deadly weapon – the large metal object it was claimed Vinyard was holding – witnesses at the scene as well as at least one of the deputies said Vinyard did not have anything in his hands and was yet inside his car when he was felled in a hail of gunfire.
Vinyard’s wife, Tiffany Shernaman-Vinyard, and Keith Vinyard’s four sons and one daughter filed a lawsuit in July 2024 in the aftermath of the 52-year-old Vinyar’s death.
Attorney Brad Gage, representing the family, alleged in the suit that Vinyard made no threats and had no gun during the incident and was subjected to deadly force without provocation. The lawsuit further alleged the deputies failed to provide Vinyard with prompt medical assistance after the shooting. It was never clearly determined what the object in Vinyard’s hand was.
On September 25, Gage and attorneys for the county entered into a stipulation in which the county acknowledged no liability but agreed to a $5.2 million settlement to end the litigation.
Shernaman-Vinyard received a gross settlement of $2.6 million over the death of her husband. All five of the children received a separate $520,000 settlement, payable upon their reaching the age of 18.
More recently, a verdict was reached in federal court after a trial was held to adjudicate a lawsuit brought over the death of Antonio Garza Jr, 44, on February 5, 2023.
Deputies had come to the scene of a burning truck northeast of Yucca Valley roughly five miles from Joshua Tree, where they reached a tentative conclusion that the conflagration was an arson fire. One of the deputies spotted Garza not too distant from the truck. Suspecting that he was responsible for the fire, the deputies made an effort to contact him, at which point he fled in a vehicle. The pursuit went southeast on Highway 62 through Yucca Valley and then south on Highway 62 through Morongo across the Riverside County line and onto the 10 Freeway. At the Whitewater Cutoff, Garza attempted to leave the freeway, whereupon his car was unable to progress further in the sand. Garza abandoned the vehicle and ran, clutching a golf wedge. Four deputies, including Bill Abernathy and Nicholas Kridner, pursued him. There were verbal exchanges between the deputies and Garza. None of the deputies were outfitted with bodyworn video cameras. A citizen who was driving on the 10 Freeway and pulled over to use a cellphone camera to videorecord a portion of the confrontation captured moving images of the confrontation, during which Garza is moving away from the deputies and repeatedly turning to face them. During an audible portion of the video recording, Kridner is heard repeatedly ordering Garza to get on the ground. In response, at one point, Garza who is facing the deputies, prophetically retorts “No. You’re fucking going to shoot me, bro.”
One of the deputies other than Kridner and Abernathy fired non-lethal beanbags at Garza, hitting him twice.
It was when Garza ceased moving away from the deputies and began moving toward them that the deputies began firing, discharging their weapons 21 times.
According to their testimony, Kridner and Abernathy fired only after Garza raised the golf club to swing it at them.
Fourteen shots were fired at Garza while he was still standing. Seven additional shots were fired after Garza had fallen to the ground. He was hit by 12 of those 21 shots. An autopsy determined that Garza was struck twice in the back while he was yet standing and twice while on the ground.
According to David Washington and Rebecca Brown with the law firm of Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai, which represented Garza’s Garza’s mother, Matilde Garza, in the suit she brought against the county, the department and both Abernathy and Kridner,
Anthony Garza was in the throws of a mental health crisis on February 5, 2023, according to Matilde Garza’s attorneys, and on that day the deputies failed to make a proper allowance for that. Moreover according to Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai, the sheriff’s department had previous contact with Anthony Garza and its employees should have recognized they were dealing with a mentally ill subject.
Mitilde Garza’s suit contends that in addition to failure’s by the sheriff’s department, other branches of San Bernardino County government failed her son.
Anthony Garza’s family members contacted the sheriff’s department two years to the day before his death on February 5, 2021, in response to his erratic behavior. Responding deputies arrested him in the midst of a full-blown psychotic episode, one in which he made verbal threats and threatening gestures, and, while driving a vehicle, veered toward the deputies. On that basis, he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Thereafter, his family sought assistance from the courts, initiating a conservatorship petition which did not reach fruition, and calling for intervention by the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health.
Over the next two years, there were further manifestations of psychosis and paranoia, according to testimony at trial. In some case, according to testimony, Garza was not accepted into certain mental health programs because he was not will to voluntarily submit to their requirements and protocols and there was no court order to force him to participate.
In 2022, Garza, who was being prosecuted for assault with a deadly weapon with regard to the February 2021 incident, was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial. He was accordingly ordered into custody in a county jail facility equipped to house him until a state mental health facility could accommodate him. An attorney representing him petitioned for his release, and on January 24, 2023 he was released from custody in the county jail, conditional upon his taking part in a state-licensed mental health program within 48 hours. His efforts to comply with the order was thwarted when he was informed there was a six-month wait list for acceptance into such a program.
At trial, the county marshaled evidence and testimony to show that Garza was a heavy methamphetamine user, and that he had a substantial dosage of methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. The county legal team also attempted to demonstrate that Garza had swung the golf wedge at Kridner just before he and Abernathy opened fire.
Matilde Garza was provided with $10 million for loss of love and companionship, and was given $8 million for emotional pain and suffering, $8 million for future loss of enjoyment, $6 million for physical pain, $2 million for mental pain, $2.8 million in lost earnings and $5 million for the violations of her son’s civil rights. Jurors set aside another $8 million to Antonio Garza’s estate for loss of enjoyment of life. In addition, the jury found the two deputies acted with reckless disregard and awarded $10 million in punitive damages.
Brown and Washington said the jury considered the action by Kridner and Abernathy unconscionable, and was sending the sheriff’s department a message that the aggressive responses of its deputies would no longer be tolerated.
According to the jury, Kridner was 38 percent liable for what occurred, Abernathy 30 percent liable, the county 17 percent liable and Garza 15 percent liable. According to lawyers familiar with the apportionment of financial responsibility in such cases, this likely means that the $51.8 million award will be reduced to $44,030,000.
The $51.8 million awarded to Matilde Garza surpasses the largest amount, $33.5 million, previously awarded in a wrongful death case involving a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department shooting death, one made to the family of another San Bernardino County man, Nathaniel Pickett Jr, who was killed by an officer utilizing excessive force when he responded to a spurious report that Pickett was engaged in illegal activity at the Barstow hotel/motel he was legitimately checked into as a guest. Indeed, the $51.8 award appears to be the largest settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit involving a law enforcement agency in California history.
One San Bernardino County resident told the Sentinel that the amount of money realized by Matilde Garza and Tiffany Shernaman-Vinyard from the deaths of their family members was “ridiculous” and “in no way justifiable.” He pointed out that in both cases, the family members who are now the recipients of multi-millions of dollars had contacted the sheriff’s department when the deceased were yet living and had requested the officers’ assistance in dealing with both violence-prone individuals. In the case of Anthony Garza, San Bernardino County and its taxpayers are being, he said, victimized by a federal jury with “a vendetta against law enforcement,” which he said was supported by the jury’s faulty “irrational reasoning.” He said the verdict reflected “no sense of proportion. How could they figure that this guy was going to earn $2.8 million over the rest of his life? Give me a break.”
The jury put no value on the lives of the officers, he said, which were put at risk by Garza’s poor choices and actions. “If it had gone the other way, and he had killed one of those deputies, how much would the deputy’s wife be due? If someone whose lawyer keeps him confined to the nuthouse to keep him out of jail and then lit everything he saw on fire as soon as he got out is worth $52 million, how much does the family of someone who never got arrested, never spent an hour in jail, supports his family, wakes up at 5:30 a.m. five days a week so he can show up for work on time and carries a gun and a badge get? $520 million? What’s the value of a decent person? How much do you pay a family that loses someone like that? This whole thing is out of whack, way out of whack.”
-Mark Gutglueck