Salinas PD facing claims of excessive force during April arrest

A violent arrest caught on police body cams is now leading to a potential civil suit against the Salinas Police Department.

The case concerns the arrest of a 27-year-old Salinas man named Jeff Mackay back in April, when he ran a stop sign and ran from police who tried pulling him over.

Mackay’s fiance admits he was driving on a suspended license when police tried to stop him, but she says during his arrest, they went too far. His injuries, as well as the body cam footage, are her evidence of the rough treatment he received.

The video itself is chaotic. KION censored the explicit language before airing parts of the body cam footage. You can see Mackay jumping on a fence before getting tasered.

Officers surround Mackay, and that is when you see what appears to be a Salinas police officer kicking him even after Mackay is heard yelling he is not resisting.

“They continued to yell ‘stop resisting’, you can hear in the video (Mackay) says ‘I’m not resisting’ and ‘I’m down, I’m down.’ And at that point, they continued (with) multiple hits, kicks, blows to the face,” said Mackay’s fiance, who got the body cam footage from her lawyers used during the trial.

KION has also requested the video from the Salinas Police Department.

The fiance, who did not want her identity or face revealed because of a potential work conflict, says Mackay suffered multiple bruises and stitches and has permanent hearing loss in his right ear.

“I was so scared because I could even barely recognize him, blood everywhere,” she said. “I work in the medical field and I see car accidents all the time and I’ve never seen trauma on somebody’s face, and that’s what my assumption was, so traumatically beaten from what I thought was a steering wheel, but it
ended up actually being the blows from the police.”

The fiance argues police used excessive force during the arrest and now plans a civil suit against the Salinas Police Department.

Police Chief Adele Frese tells KION they have opened up an internal investigation into the events of that night in April, but she takes issue with the way the nearly five minute body cam video is portrayed.

“We can’t go by that video that’s been recreated and spliced and diced and put back together,” said Frese. “We have to look at original images.”

She adds that body cam footage does not always tell the whole story, and an investigation should bring out more of the circumstances that lead to the use of force.

“We hold those officers to those high standards, and we worked hard to be as transparent as we possibly can,” said Frese. “I would hold off making any judgments. You weren’t there, I wasn’t there. We can’t see everything that’s going on, and often times we find there may be very good reasons for the actions that were taken.”

The fiance says she is still looking for a lawyer. Mackay is currently serving a four year term at the North Kern State Prison for several misdemeanors.