The fallout continues for the dozens of Antioch police officers implicated in a racist text message scandal.
A new lawsuit has been filed against Antioch and the suit is linked to a 2019 incident involving one of the officers mentioned in the text messages. The defendant claims not only was she falsely arrested, but the officer broke her arm in the process.
“You see about it on viral videos but to actually go through it, it’s scary and it’s crazy,” said Claudjanae Young of Concord.
The incident happened in October of 2019. Young said that she was sitting in a car inside of her garage when police officers walked up and started asking vague questions about a crime.
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She said that’s when she got out of the car and things took a turn.
“I looked at them and said 'yeah, sure. Let me go grab my mom.' As soon as I closed the door, the officer grabbed me, threw me into the water heater, slammed me on the floor and then, broke my arm,” Young said.
Young shared videos that she said showed what happened after that initial incident. She is seen in the video handcuffed on the curb after she said that the officer broke her arm. She said it took an hour for an ambulance to arrive.
That's when her sister, and other neighbors began recording. Young said that's also when the same officer who broke her arm, spotted the sister recording video and slammed her to the ground.
Young told NBC Bay Area on Wednesday that she was jailed for five days following the incident before being released with no charges. She said to this day, she still doesn’t know why she was arrested.
The officer who allegedly broke her arm is Devon Wenger, one of more than a dozen Antioch police officers implicated in the agency’s racist text messaging scandal.
In those text messages, Wenger appears to send a message agreeing with a fellow officer who said they don't like body cameras.
The suit Young filed Wednesday claims Wenger and other officers illegally entered her garage in 2019 after reports of shoplifting in the area. The suit also claims race played a factor.
“So, there were a group of African Americans who supposedly shoplifted at a costume party store. Somewhere in the area. My client didn’t shoplift anything. There was no one to say they’ve seen her steal anything. Her only crime that she is African American,” lawyer Stanley Goff said.
NBC Bay Area reached out to Antioch police chief Steven Ford about the lawsuit. He told NBC Bay Area that he was unaware of the 2019 incident. It’s important to note that Ford didn't become the city's police chief until April of 2022.
According to a police report, Wenger claims Young matched the description of a group of individuals accused of shoplifting at a nearby Spirit Halloween Store. In the report, Wenger claims as he approached Young in her garage, a kid exited the car with a "Power Rangers" costume - a notable stolen item mentioned to police by a store employee.
Wenger asked the kid where he got the costume, and he pointed toward Young in the driver's seat. When Wenger approached Young, the report confirms Young's account that she wanted to talk with her mother. But Wenger's partner on the scene, Officer Erik Nilsen, who is also being sued in the lawsuit, told Young she was being detained and not free to walk away. When Young tried to run inside the home, Wenger grabbed Young to arrest her. He claims she resisted, and confirmed her arm did break during the incident.
The report also explained Wenger's takedown of her sister, China Young, which is shown in the cell phone video following Young's arrest. Wenger claims she also matched the description of one of the shoplifters, and when he asked her about it, she walked away. The report said he tried to detain her, which led to the tussle seen in the video. Wenger claims he was struck several times by China, including a laceration above the eye.
The case was passed on to the Contra Costa County District Attorney's office, and a complaint was filed on June 2020 showing several charges against Young, her sister, and another individual. The complaint included three second degree robbery charges between 2019 and 2020.
For the October 2019 incident, Young and her sister were charged for shoplifting at the Spirit Halloween store. Young took a plea deal in July of 2020 for all charges, which included staying away from the stores she was accused of shoplifting at.
Young is still recovering from the injuries and hopes the police department can find a way to restore the trust of her community.
“And I hope people above them can find people who actually want to do their job and come in and help people like us,” she said.
