Outrage after video shows cops using a taser on motorist in aftermath of an epileptic seizure
Lawsuit accuses police of using excessive force and violating federal disability law
Community members in the small San Francisco Bay Area city of Hercules, California, expressed their outrage Wednesday during a meeting over a 2024 incident where police manhandled and repeatedly tased a 21-year-old motorist who drifted off the road and crashed in the midst of a seizure.
"The disrespect, the violent way he was treated and acknowledging that he had this seizure," one local woman said, KTVU reports.
"There is a sense that people are not going to accept that kind of behavior from our police," added Sarah Creeley, a Hercules school teacher and resident, according to the outlet.
The anger stemmed from an April 2024 incident.
Jack Bruce was driving down Refugio Valley Road after visiting his grandmother when he began to have a seizure for the first time in his life.
"I just remember going to visit my grandmother, and when I left that house, my memory cut off," Bruce told NBC Bay Area after the incident.
The then-21-year-old drifted off the road and crashed, where fellow motorists found him convulsing and called 911, reporting that they believed he was suffering a seizure.
“While the car accident caused no injuries, the first responders did,” alleges a lawsuit Bruce filed in California federal court last month.
Police body camera footage, revealed to the public as part of the suit, captures three officers on the scene: Angel Garcia, Michael Thompson, and Joshua Goldstein, according to the complaint.
Goldstein initially told his fellow officers, “Don’t move him ... he’s having a seizure,” but the group quickly lost patience as it demanded the still dazed Bruce get out of the car.
Despite police training standards advising officers not to move or restrain seizure victims, the officers began to threaten Bruce, according to the footage.
"Do not f***ing fight us,” one officer can be heard saying on the footage. “You will f***ing get ripped out of this car. We're not playing.”
Bruce was tased three times, punched in the face, had his hair and limbs pulled violently, and was left with ongoing injuries and mental distress, according to the suit, which claims police used excessive force and violated the Americans With Disabilities Act as they roughly detained an individual later diagnosed with epilepsy.
"I'm hurt mentally. Physically, just watching it makes me hurt," Bruce added in his interview with NBC Bay Area. "It's just something no one should go through, and I don't want it to happen again."
After the April encounter, police then wrote an incident report suggesting Bruce was driving under the influence and attacked officers when they arrived, according to the suit, though the local district attorney never pressed charges.
The Hercules Police Department has said it does not comment on pending litigation, and that state law prevents it from disclosing whether the officers have faced any discipline.
At the community meeting, Police Chief Joseph Vasquez said an independent investigation was underway.
"That trust has been fractured, and we need to build to get that trust back,” he told attendees.