SANTA CRUZ — A weekend arrest requiring heavy Santa Cruz police response has raised concerns along racial equity lines from community members.
The arrest, ultimately involving more than five officers and taking place in a grassy field near the Westside farmers market around 12:30 p.m. Saturday, caught the eye of two separate Sentinel readers. Not far across town, hundreds of community members gathered to paint a largescale city-sanctioned street mural with the words “Black Lives Matter” in front of City Hall.
One reader, who recorded part of the encounter, posted the video clip to Twitter under the header “TRIGGER WARNING: POLICE BRUTALITY.” The account holder, @gardengorl, did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Another reader, UC Santa Cruz doctoral student Michelaina Johnson, said she did not witness officers “act violently or harshly” but hoped the newspaper would investigate what she identified as the Black man’s health after his arrest.
Neither woman said they witnessed the events leading up to the man’s arrest.
“The incident did not strike me as alarming,” Johnson wrote in an email to the Sentinel. “The man was refusing arrest, but police did not escalate the situation to violence. In light of the ongoing national battle against police brutality, I am still concerned, though, that an individual black man was arrested by upwards of five officers.”
According to Santa Cruz Police Department spokeswoman Joyce Blaschke, police were first called to the area of Western Drive and Mission Street due to witness reports of a man running in and out of traffic, screaming at vehicles and “even putting himself in front of a man who was riding his bike with his daughter.”
“Turns out, it looks like he was under the influence of what looks like narcotics,” Blaschke said. “When officers contacted him, they tried to calm him down, offered him a drink, but it looks like he refused that. And he just continued to become more agitated.”
The man, Suresh Rosewood, a 38-year-old Santa Cruz man who Blaschke said was Indian, not Black, allegedly fled from police while they were still shutting down traffic in the area, moving to the area of Mission and Swift streets and continuing in and out of traffic.
“Officers detained him,” Blaschke said of the end of the encounter. “They did indeed ‘tase’ him, but that was after he fought with officers and then ran away.”
After his arrest on suspicion of drunk and disorderly conduct, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest, Rosewood — described in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office jail log as a gas station attendant — was cited and released. As of Tuesday afternoon, charges had not yet been filed against him in Santa Cruz County Superior Court.
“We treat all people, regardless of their color, ethnicity, equally,” Blaschke added.
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Heavy response questioned in Santa Cruz arrest - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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