Ex-deputy accused of punching Palmdale mother holding baby sues county for firing him
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Video from the Sheriff’s Department shows a deputy in Palmdale punching a woman carrying her baby after a traffic stop.
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Nearly two years after a Black mother sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department because, she said, a Palmdale deputy punched her in the face during a wrongful arrest, the deputy has filed suit as well.
Timothy Gardner — who was fired over the 2022 incident — lodged his complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday. He accused the Sheriff’s Department of wrongly firing him because it was “bad optics” for a white officer to hit a Black woman, which he says he only did in an attempt to save her child from a risky situation.
“Deputy Gardner saved a baby when the suspect was threatening to break the baby’s legs,” the suit alleged. “If Deputy Gardner were not white, he would not have been terminated.”
In an emailed statement Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Department said it had not yet been served with the lawsuit, but that it takes all use-of-force incidents seriously.
Though the county has not yet responded to the claim in court, lawyers for the county previously defended Gardner’s actions in their response to the 2023 federal lawsuit filed by Yeayo Russell, the young mother Gardner punched.
“The conduct of the involved deputies was objectively reasonable,” the county’s lawyers wrote in their legal response two years ago, adding that the “deputies were acting in self-defense and defense of others.”
On Tuesday, the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs — the union representing rank-and-file deputies — said Gardner’s handling of the case “deserves praise” and criticized the department’s decision to fire him.
“The LASD administration, with little understanding of the circumstances, fired Deputy Gardner for his decisive action in rescuing a three-week-old child from the aggressive grip of an irate suspect resisting arrest,” union Vice President Thomas Ferguson told The Times in an emailed statement. “ALADS is certain that if the public knew all the details of this case — they would agree that the deputy should be immediately restored to duty.”
The lawsuit stems from a late-night traffic stop in July 2022, when Palmdale deputies spotted a vehicle driving without the headlights on. After they pulled over the driver, the deputies allegedly noticed the smell of alcohol coming from inside and spotted four women, three of whom were holding babies in their arms instead of using car seats.
The deputies arrested the female passengers on suspicion of felony child endangerment. They arrested the male driver on suspicion of felony child endangerment, driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license.
On Wednesday night, the Sheriff’s Department released a video regarding a use-of-force incident.
In the course of those arrests, deputies used force on two of the women, one of whom was Russell.
The bulk of an eight-minute body-camera video of the incident released by the Sheriff’s Department shows a tense exchange between several deputies and a woman clutching her baby. The deputies repeatedly asked the woman to give up the child so they could arrest her.
“Forcefully taking your child from you is not what’s best,” one deputy said.
“Taking my child from me is not what’s best,” the woman responded.
After several minutes of back-and-forth, the deputies pried the woman’s hands apart and took the child from her arms.
Then, deputies said they planned to arrest Russell, too.
“Y’all gonna have to shoot me dead to take my baby from my arms,” she said, before a struggle ensued.
While at least two deputies held her by the wrists and arms, video shows a third threw two punches at her head as she clung to her baby with one arm.
The chaotic video footage does not provide a clear perspective, but, according to the lawsuit, at one point Russell’s baby was left hanging upside down as another deputy pulled on the child’s leg.
Court filings entered as part of the lawsuit show the matter reached a tentative settlement last year, though the agreement is still awaiting approval by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. The records did not specify the dollar value of the settlement, and Russell’s attorneys did not immediately offer comment.
Gardner’s filings paint the case differently.
“On July 13, 2022, Deputy Gardner rescued a baby from a suspect who was belligerently and defiantly holding the baby precariously and threatening to break the baby’s legs,” the suit alleges. “Deputy Gardner came to the call to assist the handling deputies.”
The deputies on the scene “did everything they could” to de-escalate the situation — but their efforts failed, the suit says. Eventually, believing “the baby’s health and life were at risk,” Gardner “did not use his gun or taser, but instead simply used his hands to save the baby.”
Lawyers for Yeayo Russell said she was breastfeeding her baby when deputies pulled over the car and arrested her, violently tugging on her baby’s leg before taking the child.
Initially, the administration of Alex Villanueva — still the sheriff in the summer of 2022 — reviewed the incident and decided Gardner had done nothing wrong, the suit says. Then in July 2023, newly elected Sheriff Robert Luna called a news conference to release body-camera footage of the incident and announce his decision to turn the case over to the FBI for further investigation.
“I found the punching of the woman and the circumstances completely unacceptable,” he said at the time, adding that he “took swift action” and relieved the deputy of duty after finding out about it a few days earlier. An online fundraiser later garnered more than $39,000 in donations to support Gardner and his family.
Ultimately, Gardner was not just relieved of duty but first suspended and then fired, according to the suit. Now, Vincent Miller, the lawyer representing Gardner, says that hasty termination doesn’t square with the department’s arguments in response to Russell’s lawsuit.
“Deputy Gardner was terminated for doing no wrong,” Miller wrote in this week’s legal complaint. “As a result of the termination, he has lost 30 years of future income as a peace officer, costing him millions of dollars in salary and retirement.”
In addition to damages, Gardner is demanding his job back.
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