A brutal case of police misconduct is now moving to trial, bringing to light hard truths and undeniable evidence in a $30 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department. At its heart is Slade Douglas, a Black veteran, a man who stood for others, who, based on the evidence, was falsely arrested, sexually assaulted, tortured, and forcibly hospitalized by LAPD Officers Jeremy R. Wheeler and Jeffrey H. Yabana in 2019.
In October 2023, United States District Judge, Honorable Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong rejected an appeal from LAPD lawyers to dismiss the case, ruling that Officers Jeremy Wheeler and Jeffrey Yabana are not entitled to qualified immunity for unconstitutional detention, excessive force, retaliation, violation of due process, violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, violation of the Bane Act, battery, false arrest, false imprisonment, and negligence. The judge also held that the City of Los Angeles is vicariously liable for the officers’ actions.
What occurred was not a mental health intervention. It was a government-orchestrated swatting initiated by the VA in retaliation.
As the Court has already found in its summary judgment ruling, the officers “had no such extensive nor detailed information” and relied only on “a second-hand communication from the Veterans Crisis Hotline … without any context.” This forecloses the defense’s attempt to frame the incident as a lawful welfare check.
Douglas was unjustly targeted for a wellness check and labeled a threat after he filed a systemic discrimination complaint against the Veterans Administration. Following his formal complaint to the President of the United States, the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) contacted him. Douglas then reached out to the VCL regarding his systemic discrimination complaint, which is currently being monitored by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Official Veterans Administration documents reveal that on August 27, 2019, the VA initiated a “swatting” incident against Slade Douglas, falsely summoning the LAPD to his location.
The National Archives and Records Administration later disclosed that the VCL intentionally deleted phone calls from that day, which contained false suicide allegations against Douglas.
Douglas is an Army veteran with an impeccable record, starting kick returner in the 2001 BCS National Championship for Florida State University, dual-sport NCAA athlete in football and track with sub-4.2 speed, holder of multiple black belts, former Golden Gloves boxer, former law enforcement officer, and college graduate with multiple degrees, including a Bachelor of Science from Florida State.
Slade Douglas states: “Calling a swatting a ‘welfare check’ is a false narrative.” It reframes a criminal and unconstitutional intrusion as an act of care. The law draws a bright line: When state actors act on false pretenses, knowingly or negligently, and violate constitutional safeguards, the conduct is not protective. It is punitive, retaliatory, and unlawful, no matter how the LAPD Officers Jeremy R. Wheeler and Jeffrey H. Yabana, the City of Los Angeles and their attorneys now try to frame it.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong set a precedent in the case of Slade Douglas vs. City of Los Angeles et al, where she declared, “The purpose of a welfare check is for the benefit of the individual at issue, not because they are under suspicion of any crime.”
Douglas said. “I was arrested inside my own home. There was no warrant. No crime was witnessed. No lawful basis existed under Caniglia v. Strom, 141 S. Ct. 1596 (2021), and Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), which requires one or the other. And Officer Wheeler himself stated. He arrested me for calling 911. Let that be fully understood: I exercised a lawful right, and I was punished for it. It was a constitutional violation from the start, rooted in deception, sustained by unlawful entry, and finalized by retaliation for engaging in a protected act.”
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong noted that “the defendants concede that Douglas was engaged in protected speech when he contacted 911 in their presence,” further stating that it is unconstitutional to evoke probable cause to take someone into custody under WIC 5150.
After being taken by force without legal justification, in the back of a patrol car, hands bound in cuffs, Douglas cried out in pain. But his cries were met with laughter. The officers mocked his disability, dismissing his suffering as they stripped him of his dignity. The court noted, “It is well-established that any force applied without probable cause is a violation of constitutional rights.”
This conspiracy against Douglas’s rights, involving Wheeler, Yabana, Sergeant Andrew Kang, and EMTs, who openly admitted that their unconstitutional actions were solely to protect the LAPD officers and the City from liability, was carried out by forcibly transporting Douglas to the hospital under the pretense of care, but in truth, to conceal the wrongdoing.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, in her Findings of Fact, concluded: “Upon arriving at the hospital, Wheeler spoke with medical staff, and Douglas received treatment without his consent.”
At PIH Good Samaritan Hospital, a facility contracted by the City, the nightmare deepened as Douglas was subjected to a horrific series of abuses. Based on Douglas’s sworn deposition, officers coerced medical staff into attempting to find something in his system to justify the arrest, resulting in Douglas being forcibly injected with drugs while handcuffed to a gurney—rendering him unconscious. Over the course of his ordeal, he was injected a total of nine times. He was not just a man anymore; he was a victim, shackled in restraints, his limbs stretched out like a crucifixion, he was subjected to invasive blood draws, exhaustive toxicology tests, and brutal acts of sexual assault, including forced catheterization. His cries, his pleas for mercy, were met with cold, clinical indifference and glee.
Once it was determined that Douglas had no drugs in his system, he was finally released from custody—without charge, and not as a free man, but as a broken one.
Documentary:
“Slade Douglas v. City of Los Angeles — The Veteran They Tried to Silence” can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Q99Er0n0Y.
$10 million is not enough compensation. Not nearly enough…