A woman filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court against a former Garland police officer after authorities said he pepper-sprayed her in the face while she was handcuffed inside a police car.
The suit alleges Matthew Mitchell, 29, used “greater force than was necessary” when arresting Xochitl Sanchez, 45, at her Garland home in February 2021. Sanchez alleges she suffered extreme pain and mental anguish in what the lawsuit called a “brutal assault” that lasted several seconds.
Garland police fired Mitchell in May 2021 after police questioned his actions in two use-of-force incidents on back-to-back nights, including his interaction with Sanchez. Sanchez is seeking $10 million in damages, according to the lawsuit.
“This is an egregious case of a helpless and physically disengaged single mother who posed absolutely no threat,” Sanchez’s lawyer Mark Robinius said in a written statement. The lawsuit “is meant to send a message that brutal assaults on citizens and deliberate indifference to their suffering will no longer be tolerated,” he said.
The city of Garland, also named in the suit, did not respond to a request for comment. Garland police declined to comment.
Mitchell also faces misdemeanor charges of assault causing bodily injury and official oppression in Dallas County in connection with Sanchez’s arrest. Those cases, filed in July, are pending.
Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment. His lawyer, Robert Rogers, who represents him in the criminal cases, said Mitchell’s use of the pepper spray was “within law and policy and was a reasonable response to a combative, non-compliant suspect’s decision to spit on a police officer who was making a lawful arrest.”
It is unclear if Mitchell has an attorney for the federal civil suit.
The Dallas County district attorney’s office declined to comment on the criminal cases.
Officers were called around 3 a.m. Feb. 22, 2021, about a domestic dispute. The lawsuit alleges Sanchez’s daughters called 911 to retaliate against her for taking away their phones.
The lawsuit says Sanchez did not resist arrest but said Mitchell forced her to her knees and handcuffed her behind her back before dragging her to a police vehicle. While she was being dragged, Sanchez’s pants fell down, exposing her buttocks, according to the lawsuit. The officers mocked her and continued to drag her toward the police car as Sanchez pleaded for them to pull her pants up, the lawsuit says. Sanchez was restrained by a seatbelt inside the vehicle, the lawsuit says.
An officer accused Sanchez of spitting on him; the lawsuit says she sneezed.
Mitchell approached the vehicle, opened a door and pepper-sprayed Sanchez, who was “physically immobilized and completely vulnerable,” for several seconds, the lawsuit says.
Mitchell did not call for medical assistance, according to the lawsuit, and officers took Sanchez to the Garland jail.
An initial police report omitted that Mitchell pepper-sprayed Sanchez, The Dallas Morning News previously reported. When a lieutenant discovered the report did not match body-camera footage, the report was amended. In the updated report, Mitchell said Sanchez was noncompliant, “intoxicated … resisting officers and yelling profanities at officers.”
As of September, Mitchell was not working in law enforcement but was still a licensed peace officer in Texas, according to records from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement.
A day before Sanchez’s arrest, Mitchell kneed a handcuffed man in the head and face who was arrested during a traffic stop until he appeared “dazed and nearly unconscious,” Garland police chief Jeff Bryan wrote in a letter last year to the Garland Civil Service Commission.
Bryan wrote in the letter Mitchell “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly” misrepresented to internal affairs investigators what happened during the traffic stop.
The News requested body-camera footage of both incidents but the city has not released it.
Mitchell, who now lives in East Texas, previously worked short stints as a law enforcement officer in Paris and Mount Pleasant.
