Video shows police officer assaulted jaywalker, starting Logan Heights confrontation

A San Diego Police officer who clubbed a homeless black veteran in Logan Heights has a history of anti-African American comments on social media, including a 2016 Facebook post where he called Black Lives Matter activists “black slime.”
SDPD Officer Matthew Ruggiero was punched in the face by Frederick Jefferson on Feb. 3 after he attempted to hit Jefferson in the head area with a night stick during a confrontation on Logan Avenue. Video of the incident shows that Jefferson blocked the club with his left arm and counter punched Ruggiero with his right, breaking Ruggiero’s nose and sending him to the hospital. A police spokesperson told news media that Jefferson had “sucker punched” Ruggiero, but video of the confrontation shows that Ruggiero struck first. Ruggiero is white, Jefferson is black.
SDPD spokesperson Lt. Scott Wahl said police body camera video would show that Jefferson provoked the clubbing and that “a different story will come out in court.” Wahl refused to allow journalists to see the video that he said would support his claims because it is considered to be evidence in an ongoing investigation.
Witnesses, however, refuted Wahl’s version of the incident. Bystanders said that Jefferson was argumentative, but did not start the confrontation and did not assault Ruggiero first as Wahl claimed. Alexis Del Castillo was walking on the sidewalk on the west side of Logan Avenue north of the barricaded intersection of Cesar Chavez Parkway prior to the confrontation. He said Ruggiero grew agitated with Jefferson because he was walking in the middle of Logan Avenue, which police had closed to escort a white supremacist group that had been protesting in nearby Chicano Park minutes earlier. Del Castillo said Ruggiero grabbed Jefferson’s arm and neck area after Jefferson walked past Ruggiero and another SDPD officer. Jefferson squirmed free and was walking backward away from the officers when Ruggiero attempted to strike him with a club in his head and neck area. Jefferson raised his left arm to block the club, which appeared in a video to strike him in the ribs. Jefferson countered with a right hand punch to Ruggiero’s face.
Jefferson sat for two 30-minute interviews with The Sun in the visitor area of the George F. Bailey Detention Facility where he is being held. He said the officers initiated the confrontation and he was trying to back away when he was attacked by Ruggiero.
“I wanted to put distance in there because I was afraid they were going to Rodney King my ass,” Jefferson said.
King was an African-American taxi driver severely beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers during a traffic stop that was captured on video March 3, 1991.
Jefferson said he panicked and tried to defend himself when Ruggiero raised the night stick to hit him. He was charged with four felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon and assault on a police officer. He is facing nine years in prison if convicted on all counts. To date, Ruggiero has not been charged with any crimes or misconduct.
Jefferson said the charges are unfair and that he was acting in self-defense.
“They’re saying the deadly weapon was my forearm,” he said. “I never used it as a weapon. I used it to block. He had that metal ass billy club. If that’s not assault with a deadly weapon, I don’t know what is.”
Jefferson showed a reporter severe bruising to his upper rib area and said he has been denied medical care at the prison for more than two weeks despite submitting five formal written medical requests. He has wounds to his neck, shoulders and arm consistent with scratches. Wahl and San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said during television news interviews that Jefferson was not hurt by police. Zimmerman has not returned several phone calls and Twitter messages seeking comment on the case.
Ruggiero has been outspoken on social media about his dislike of the Black Lives Matter movement and civilians who video police confrontations.
“Law enforcement has spent the last twenty-five-plus years being unfairly criticized because of the growing proliferation of out-of-context videos taken by the public,” he wrote. “Those videos viewed out of context have led to a false belief that police use-of-force policies are broken, calling for mandatory body cameras to keep us in line; but when body camera footage shows that it’s the citizen acting like a child/animal/jerk instead of the cop, we shouldn’t release the video?”
Ruggiero also made numerous posts critical of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I’m tired of hearing people call these black activists,” he wrote on Facebook. “They’re not black activists, this is black slime and it needs to be eradicated from the American society and culture.”
On a later Facebook post he called Black Lives Matter activists “idiots.”
“Choose your battles BLM,” he wrote, “because the rest of us are losing patience with you.”
Cellular phone video shot by two civilians from two different angles show that Jefferson was injured during his scuffle with police. Video shared with The Southwestern College Sun by human rights organization IRATE Productions shows Ruggiero arguing with Jefferson, who was attempting to jaywalk across Logan Avenue at the moment the police were escorting the white supremacists from Chicano Park after their protest. Jefferson is seen backing away from the officer, who moved toward Jefferson and clubbed him in the head area. Jefferson countered with a single punch that landed squarely on the left side of the officer’s face.
Jefferson returned to the other side of the street where other police surrounded him.
Witness Del Castillo said officers used batons to hit Jefferson’s legs and knock him to the sidewalk. Del Castillo began filming the incident on his phone after Jefferson was on the ground. He said officers shocked Jefferson with a Taser and pepper sprayed him while six officers piled on to pin him to the ground.
“The cops were trying to hide it,” Del Castillo said. “They kept standing in front of the camera as I tried to film.”
The IRATE Productions video was shot facing south. It shows a scrum of officers on a supine Jefferson. One officer grabbed his head and turned his face toward another, who hit Jefferson point blank with a full dose of pepper spray. Del Castillo’s video, shot facing north, shows a female officer charging a Taser weapon, then discharging it directly into Jefferson’s back.
Del Castillo can be heard in the video telling the officers to not block the camera’s view of Jefferson.
Zimmerman appeared on local television newscasts and said Ruggiero was recovering from his injuries and condemned Jefferson for punching him. Zimmerman, however, did not mention that the officer attacked Jefferson first. Video shown on local newscasts that evening showed the tussle on the ground, but not the clubbing or punch that occurred seconds earlier. It is unclear whether Zimmerman had seen the clubbing video or was aware that the officer had struck Jefferson prior to being punched.
Zimmerman also indicated that she thought Jefferson was part of the white supremacist gathering or peace rally at nearby Chicano Park earlier that morning. She also mistakenly claimed that the confrontation happened in Chicano Park. She said on Feb. 3 television interviews that she did not know “which side” Jefferson was on.
Jefferson said did not attend the protest and was not even aware it had happened. Leaders of the Patriots Picnic and Chicano Park rally organizers all said Jefferson was not part of their groups.
Witnesses said it was unlikely that Jefferson was involved with the Chicano Park protest or rally at all and was likely just transiting the area as the white supremacists were leaving. There were two impenetrable police barricades between the protest site and the spot on Logan Avenue where Ruggiero and Jefferson hit each other. Jefferson was about 50 yards north of a barrier that closed Cesar Chavez Parkway, 120 yards north of a barrier on the edge of Chicano Park, and 210 yards from the Chicano Park rally in the heart of the park.
Both videos show numerous officers piled atop Jefferson as he is shocked with the Taser and pepper sprayed in a large puddle of blood. It is unclear whose blood was on the pavement. Witnesses said Jefferson was bleeding from the head. Ruggiero was bleeding profusely from the nose and a cut above the eye. Wahl said the blood was entirely from Ruggiero. Video was inconclusive.
Officers involved in the beating and arrest of Jefferson were working the “Patriot Picnic” staged by white supremacists on the portion of Chicano Park east of Logan Avenue. About 50 white nationalists and their supporters threatened to enter Chicano Park to destroy the park’s famous murals. About 1,000 people rallied on the west portion of the park, across Logan Avenue from the protesters. SDPD formed a human barricade down the center of Logan Avenue to separate the groups. Two arrests and one detainment were made on the white supremacist side of the street. No one from the pro-Chicano Park rally was arrested.
After about 45 minutes, the white extremists started to file out of the park behind fenced basketball courts on the north side of the park. SDPD escorted them away as rally participants celebrated with song and prayers. Minutes later, about 210 yards to the north, the officer and Jefferson had their encounter.
Jefferson was assigned a public defender. His bail is set at $250,000, which he said he cannot pay.
Jefferson admitted that he has had scrapes with law enforcement before. He was arrested for assaulting a gang member he said was threatening him in Baltimore and in Philadelphia for disorderly conduct. He was released from the U.S. Navy on an other-than-honorable discharge for lying to his superiors while covering up for a shipmate.
He said he moved to San Diego for a fresh start and his life was on a promising path. He had recently received a housing voucher, he said, and looked forward to finding work and leaving behind his life on the streets. On the day of his confrontation with San Diego police, he said, he was trying to walk through Logan Heights to a restaurant where he and a friend “were going to eat pancakes.” He said he is saddened that people see him only as “a homeless black man” who assaulted a police officer.
“They are not looking at the fact that I did not start this,” he said. “There was no part of my day where I initiated this.”
Jefferson said he has great respect for police officers and did not mean to injure Ruggiero.
“I have not created an opportunity (for myself) to have the honor to wear a uniform such as a police officer’s,” he said, “so I can’t imagine the amount of stress it takes to uphold that duty with pride honorably.”
Jefferson said Ruggiero and the SDPD need to be held accountable and he plans to file a lawsuit claiming police brutality and violation of his civil rights.
The Sun has left numerous messages with the San Diego Police Department seeking interviews with Ruggiero and Zimmerman. As of deadline, there have been no responses.
Video of the confrontation can be found at theswcsun.com or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gxcruExWQU&t=2s.

Police Attack in Logan Heights: The Sequence of Events, Feb. 3, 2018.
• Before 9 a.m. SDPD close Cesar Chavez Parkway, Logan Avenue, and ramps on and off I-5. Police erected barriers down the middle of Chavez Parkway with a line of motorcycles. A secondary barrier at the foot of an off ramp staffed with officers prevented anyone from leaving the protest area without a police escort.
• Beginning around 9 a.m. a crowd begins to gather for a peaceful rally opposing white supremacy and the Patriots Picnic, organized by white supremacist Roger Ogden. At the peak of the rally the crowd swells to about 1,000.
• About 10:10 a.m. a collection of about 50 loosely affiliated white supremacists begin to assemble in a corner of Chicano Park east of Logan Avenue. Some shouting and gesturing between the groups separated by police, but no violence. Two white supremacists are arrested for fighting each other.
• About 11:45 a.m. the Patriots Picnic participants begin to file out of Chicano Park around a fenced basketball court. They are escorted by SDPD. Four Native American musicians on the other side of the street serenade them in a prayer for peace. Most peace rally participants gather at the Aztec pyramid in the heart of Chicano Park for speakers, music and prayer. Rally participants still not allowed to exit Chicano Park at its north end.
• Shortly after noon. Frederick Jefferson exits the commercial district north of the intersection of Logan Avenue and Cesar Chavez Parkway, which is still closed. He jaywalks across Logan Avenue where he is met by two SDPD officers. A video captures an officer and Jefferson engaged in a verbal altercation, then shows Jefferson backing away from the officers. SDPD Officer Matthew Ruggiero pursues Jefferson and clubs him in the head area full force with a nightstick. Jefferson counters with a forceful punch to the officer’s face, breaking his nose and some facial bones.
• Jefferson returns to the other side of Logan Avenue and is clubbed in the legs by other SDPD officers until he falls to the ground.
• Multiple videos show police piling on Jefferson, beating him and wrestling with him in a large pool of blood.
• Jefferson is incapacitated and pinned to the ground by five SDPD officers, but a female SDPD officer on the south side of the scrum charges up a Taser weapon. She discharges it into Jefferson’s back.
• Seconds later an officer on the north side of the pile up pepper sprays Jefferson in the face.
• Witnesses said Jefferson appeared to have a head wound, but the video was inconclusive. Police spokesperson Lt. Scott Wahl insists all of the blood was Ruggiero’s.
• Jefferson is pushed into a squad car and taken away. He is later charged with four felonies, including assaulting a police officer, assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest.
• Leaders of the Patriots Picnic group and the Chicano Park peace rally tell journalists and police that Jefferson was not a participant in the protest or rally and was not in Chicano Park.
• Wahl appears on TV newscasts and said Jefferson hit the officer in an unprovoked attack in Chicano Park. He also said Jefferson was not injured.
• SDPD Chief Shelley Zimmerman appears on evening newscasts and says the officer is badly injured. She does not acknowledge that the officer struck the first blow. She incorrectly states that the altercation occurred in Chicano Park.
• Multiple San Diego County and Los Angeles print and broadcast news outlets incorrectly report that Jefferson and the officer had fought in Chicano Park at the white supremacist protest. No media outlet reports that the officer had struck Jefferson first.
• The Sun acquires video showing that the SDPD officer struck Jefferson first. The video also shows Jefferson being pepper sprayed in the face even though he is pinned to the ground by at least five SDPD officers. Another video shot from a different angle shows Jefferson being shocked with a Taser weapon by SDPD.
• Jefferson is being held in the George F. Bailey Detention Center in Otay Mesa on $250,000 bail. He said he is not able to raise bail and was assigned a San Diego County Public Defender because he has no money to hire an attorney. Prosecutors say he faces nine years in prison for assaulting a police officer and three other felony charges.