Officers in notorious video of California pot shop raid are off police force
SANTA ANA, Calif. Three Santa Ana Police Department officers caught eating snacks during a raid on a marijuana dispensary with two of them making fun of a disabled woman are no longer working for the agency.
Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, the departments spokesman, confirmed Thursday that Brandon Matthew Sontag, Nicole Lynn Quijas and Jorge Arroyo were no longer officers in the city.
Both Sontag and Quijas last day was May 6, and Arroyos was April 20, Bertagna said.
He declined to discuss if they were fired or left on the department on their own: I cannot comment on personnel matters.
A surveillance video, released by the dispensarys lawyer last year, shows the officers during a May 2015 raid of a marijuana dispensary, Sky High Holistic. The city accused it of selling marijuana without a permit.
(Editors note: This video was edited, and the wording that appears mounted on some of the screen images is from a source other than The Orange County Register or the Santa Ana Police Department. The profanity that appears on one of the video frames was not placed there by the Register or the Santa Ana Police Department).
The video, which made national headlines, showed officers serving a search warrant at Sky High. They ordered customers and employees to the ground and two made demeaning remarks about Sky High volunteer Marla James, an amputee in a wheelchair seen in the video.
Did you punch that one-legged old benita? a male officer asks a female officer, apparently referring to James.
I was about to kick her in her (expletive) nub, a female officer replies.
The officers disabled several cameras except a hidden one that captured the incident ...
