Santillan Arrest Video

This video taken by the Los Angeles Community Action Network shows the July 2010 arrest of Jennie Santillan, a homeless woman who relies on an electric wheelchair because she has multiple disabilities, including severe rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. After searching and handcuffing Ms. Santillan, the two arresting officers radioed for back up, and five to six police cars with sirens flashing, containing 10-12 police officers, 3-4 police officers on bicycles, and a number of Downtown Business Improvement District officers arrived on the scene for the arrest of an unarmed woman with multiple disabilities, according to the complaint filed on September 22, 2011 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Case No. CV 11-7859GAS (SHx). Police said they had a warrant for her arrest, but would not show her proof. She was never charged or taken before a judge.

The complaint tells of her four-day ordeal at the hands of Los Angeles law enforcement. During her arrest and detention, law enforcement officers abandoned her motorized wheelchair on a sidewalk; failed to provide her with an alternate mobility aid; threw away her prescription medication; and caused her intense pain by handcuffing her legs and dragging her to the police car, handcuffing her to benches for hours, and other rough treatment despite her pleas that she was in pain.

Ms. Santillan was arrested on July 10, 2010, while eating lunch with a friend near Bark Avenue Foundation on 545 S. Main Street. She was unarmed. She was detained for four days, first at Central Division Police Station, then at 77th Street Community Police Station/Regional Jail, and finally at LASD's Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood. When she was released on July 14, she found herself outside the gates of the Lynwood facility, alone, without a wheelchair or accommodations for travel back to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

After LAPD officers abandoned Ms. Santillan's motorized wheelchair on the sidewalk, Business Improvement District officers stored it in a facility in Skid Row. Ms. Santillan spent weeks tracking it down. When she recovered it, she found it was broken and inoperable. She had originally obtained the motorized wheelchair through Medicaid and cannot afford a new one. Ms. Santillan is forced to use a manual wheelchair despite extreme hardship and pain.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• DRLC LAPD
• Cangress