Its been more than a year since the San Luis Obispo County deputies arrested an Arroyo Grande middle school teacher after she allegedly threw papers and forcibly removed a hairbrush from the hand of a disruptive student who happened to be the daughter of a Sheriff’s Office employee.
Now the teacher is suing, claiming the Sheriff’s Office’s response was an “abuse of power.”
Though the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office ultimately declined to file child abuse charges against Mesa Middle School teacher Sarah Watts, it didn’t minimize the emotional distress she endured, according to a lawsuit she filed against the county and a handful of Sheriff’s Office employees this past May.
In the lawsuit, Watts claimed her arrest was “motivated by spite for the perceived mistreatment” of the Sheriff’s Office employee’s daughter, who was allegedly being disruptive in class.
The lawsuit specifically accused the county and its Sheriff’s Office of false arrest and imprisonment, unreasonable search and seizure, violation of civil rights, negligence and inflicting emotional distress.
Meanwhile, the county called Watts’ claims “frivolous” in its response to the lawsuit filed in July.
Patrick Fisher, Watts’ attorney, told The Tribune the entire experience was “extremely traumatic” for Watts and has made it “virtually impossible for her to continue on with her career as a teacher.”
“Middle school teachers always expect they’ll have to deal with some unruly, raucous students,” Fisher said. “Ms. Watts never could have anticipated that her struggles with a rowdy classroom would lead to her wrongful arrest and wrongfully tarnished reputation.”
The Sheriff’s Office referred The Tribune to the county’s counsel, Rita Neal, who told The Tribune the county “is actively defending the case.”
The lawsuit did not name a specific amount of money but rather asks for damages to be paid in an amount to be proven at trial, along with attorney’s fees.
As part of its Reality Check series, The Tribune looked into what has happened with the case in the past year.
A teacher at Mesa Middle School in San Luis Obispo County was arrested on suspicion of child abuse after she allegedly yanked a hairbrush away from a student and tossed papers around, inflicting a paper cut on the same student. The teacher won’t face criminal charges, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office said.
Lawsuit claims daughter of Sheriff’s Office employee was ‘regularly disruptive’ in class
Watts filed a lawsuit against San Luis Obispo County and several Sheriff’s Office employees about a year after her April 2023 arrest.
The lawsuit named San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson, Sgt. John Penaflor, Cmdr. Keith Scott, Det. Kara Dickel, Det. Ian McFarland and Deputy David Woodward and alleged the agency abused its power and subjected her to humiliation with the arrest.
The lawsuit alleged the student who reported the teacher was the daughter of Penaflor.
According to the lawsuit, Penaflor’s daughter was one of “few rather problematic students” in her eighth-grade math class. The student was “regularly disruptive, drawing attention away from the lesson plan and toward herself.”
On April 25, 2023, the student began causing a disruption with her hairbrush, the lawsuit said. Watts gave the student several verbal warnings, including telling the student to stop disrupting the class and put the brush away, but the student continued, the lawsuit said.
Watts then “confiscated” the hairbrush that was causing the disruption, the lawsuit said.
After Watts took the hairbrush, the student reportedly contacted her father and alleged Watts hurt her hand when the hairbrush was taken and claimed Watts threw papers, which scratched the student’s temple area.
Photos of injuries a Mesa Middle School student claimed she received at the hands of her eighth grade math teacher on April 25, 2023. The left photo shows what the student claimed was a papercut from the teacher throwing papers. The right photos shows injuries to fingers the student claimed she suffered when the teacher took a hairbrush out of her hand.
Lawsuit: Teacher alleges Sheriff’s Office workers tried to elicit false confession
According to both the lawsuit and the district attorney’s news release at the time, body camera footage showed Penaflor telling his daughter he thought the scratch near her temple was from an unrelated incident the day before.
The footage also showed Penaflor telling his daughter the scratches on her hand looked “old,” the lawsuit and District Attorney’s release said.
According to the lawsuit, the student also told Woodward, Dickel and McFarland she didn’t think Watts intentionally hit her with papers.
“Yet, even with this flimsy report of barely existent, old injuries, Watts was aggressively interrogated for almost three hours,” the lawsuit said. It claimed during that time, Woodward, Dickel and McFarland attempted to intimidate Watts into a false confession.
During the interrogation, Woodward also falsely claimed the Sheriff’s Office had video evidence of the alleged child abuse, the lawsuit said.
When the “aggressive interrogation tactics and intimidation failed to produce a false confession out of Watts,” the Sheriff’s Office “falsely arrested” her on suspicion of felony child abuse charges, the lawsuit claimed.
“The false arrest was in violation of her constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizure,” the lawsuit said.
Publicizing teacher’s arrest led to ‘crippling’ embarrassment, lawsuit says
The lawsuit said Watts was arrested at the middle school around 3:45 p.m. and arrived at the San Luis Obispo County Jail at 4:44 p.m., where she sat in a patrol car for some time.
The Sheriff’s Office sent out a news release regarding the incident at 5:49 p.m., when Watts was still in handcuffs and had not yet been removed from the patrol vehicle, the lawsuit claimed.
Watts was booked into jail at around 6:50 p.m. and was “placed in a cold, hard jail cell.” She had not been given anything to eat or drink since she was detained and interrogated at 1 p.m., the lawsuit claimed.
Watts used a used milk cartoon to get water out of the sink in the cell to drink, the lawsuit said.
Further, while her bond was posted at 9 p.m., she was not fingerprinted until around 11 p.m., the lawsuit claimed. Watts was released from jail custody after midnight.
Upon her release, Watts found numerous text messages and voicemails on her phone from people who had heard of her arrest through the county’s new release.
“Embarrassment and shame overwhelmed Watts,” the lawsuit said. “The embarrassment was crippling.”
The lawsuit claimed San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow called Watts prior to his news release to inform her his office would not be filing charges and “extended his sympathy for what she had been through — a traumatic arrest and public humiliation.”
“It is exceedingly rare for Mr. Dow to personally telephone individuals under these circumstances,” the lawsuit said. “It is even more rare for Mr. Dow to personally extend sympathy for what such individuals have been put through. The fact that Mr. Dow did this speaks volumes about the unjustness of this arrest.”
Dow did not return The Tribune’s request for comment on the alleged phone call.
According to a news release from the time, the District Attorney’s Office cited the body camera footage of the student’s father telling his daughter he thought the injuries were old as one of the reasons it did not file charges.
California law also allows teachers to use the same amount of physical control as a parent is legally allowed to use in order to keep a class from being unruly, the agency said. This meant that even if Watts had accidentally caused the scratches — which the lawsuit said she didn’t — her actions still would have been lawful, according to the agency.
County says sheriff’s employees acted in good faith
In its July response to the lawsuit, county representatives called Watts’ complaints “frivolous” and denied any wrongdoing.
It said any negative impacts Watts experienced were “directly and proximately caused and contributed by (her) carelessness and negligence.”
It also said Watts did not “exercise reasonable care” to avoid consequences of harm or prevent aggravation of any injuries.
All the Sheriff’s Office employees accused in the lawsuit acted lawfully and did not violated Watts’ rights, the filing said.
According to the filing, the officers acted with good faith. It also claimed the officers were immune to liability because any alleged injuries suffered by Watts were caused by instituting or enforcing laws.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 10.
