An altercation at a Santa Maria pro-Trump rally on Nov. 8 led to a man being held in a chokehold following a multi-car accident that occurred near the rally.
According to a video of the incident, which was posted on multiple social media platforms and has racked up thousands of views, a man holds Jacob Garza, a 20-year-old Santa Maria man involved in the car accident, on the ground in a chokehold position with both his arms and legs wrapped around Garza. Someone grabs a cellphone out of Garza’s hand as he struggles on the ground. Garza audibly struggles to breathe in the video, and someone says, “How does it feel now?” and, “Welcome to MAGA country, motherfucker.”
Later in the video, multiple individuals repeatedly ask the man holding Garza to release the chokehold so that he can breathe.
“Let him breathe. Let him breathe,” someone says as police sirens near.
The 4.5-minute long video begins with Garza already on the ground in the chokehold, and ends showing the car wreckage. It appears the Trump supporter was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest to detain the motorist, who had just been involved in a multi-car accident, until the police arrived. Garza told the Sun that he was dragged from his vehicle.
A Santa Maria Police Department spokesperson told the Sun, “A citizen’s arrest is legal. A chokehold, it kind of depends on the factors.”
According to the department, Garza was cited for allegedly causing a crash before the incident, and there were reports that he had thrown an object from his car at the Trump supporters. However, the events leading up to the struggle on the ground weren’t captured in the video, and the incident is still under investigation.
The Police Department spokesperson added that the crime report, which hasn’t yet been released to the public, was sent to the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office “for filing review for charges against quite a few different parties that were involved. The DA is ultimately going to decide if they’re going to file against people.”
The video shows that as police arrive on the scene and break up the struggle, Garza’s face appears bloody. Garza calls out that someone took his cellphone.
Garza told the Sun on Nov. 10 that he was on his way home around 2 p.m. on Nov. 8 when the dispute started.
“I crossed onto Stowell in between vehicles of a Trump Rally,” Garza wrote. “I was harassed by the men in the Ram truck. They were screaming, telling me I’m a disgrace to this country, I’m a faggot, and our country is going to hell because of people like me. I wanted to get out of the whole situation. The Ram truck revved his engine at me, which caused a reaction from me to lunge forward to avoid getting crushed by his truck.”
According to Garza, he did not hit any rallygoers, but rather accidentally collided with “innocent people,” he wrote.
Garza said that as he tried to call 911, the men in the truck and others from the rally dragged him out of his car and beat him before placing him into the chokehold and taking his phone.
“I couldn’t breathe, already seeing black with no oxygen going to my head, and that man was whispering in my ear saying, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘You’re not going to breathe you fucking faggot,’ ‘Welcome to MAGA country motherfucker,’” Garza said. “To the innocent families that were hurt by this incident: My prayers are with you. To the world and everyone wondering, this whole incident was caused and fueled by hatred and domestic terrorism.”
The individual who filmed the video didn’t respond to a request for comment before press time.
Paul Bergman, a law professor at UCLA, told the Sun that the use of a chokehold, generally speaking, brings up questions of excessive force. And while the police maintain a level of qualified immunity, private citizens do not.
A person making a citizen’s arrest “can only use reasonable force to detain the suspect. … A chokehold has potentially permanent and sometimes fatal consequences. I would say there’s definitely an issue as to whether excessive force was used to detain the individual.”
Bergman added that a person making a citizen’s arrest must also consider the alternatives to using force.
“The other issue is, well, what other alternatives were there?” Bergman said. “Well, you have his license plate. If the person is trying to drive away, then copy down the license plate and turn the information over to the police.”
The video doesn’t show whether Garza made an attempt to leave the scene before he was forced into the chokehold.
This article appears in Nov 12-19, 2020.
