After five years of seeking “justice for Nakia,” a historic $17 million settlement has been reached for a former Sacramento County mother who was dragged and beaten unconscious by Solano County sheriff’s deputies in 2020.
“The settlement is one of the largest in California history for a case of this type,” said Yasin M. Almadani, Nakia Porter’s Southern California-based attorney, in a statement shared with The OBSERVER.
Porter, a software engineer living in Orangevale at the time, and her family filed a federal lawsuit against the Solano County Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 18, 2021, for excessive force and civil rights violations. The lawsuit accused two deputies — Dalton McCampbell and Lisa McDowell — of beating Porter on Aug. 6, 2020, and alleging the department hid video footage from dash and body cameras.
As previously reported by The OBSERVER, Porter, then 33, was driving home from an event in Oakland when she pulled off a freeway ramp in Dixon to switch with her father, Joe Berry “JB” Powell, then 61, because she had been driving for an extended period. Three children, all under age 6, were also in the car: two of Porter’s three children and a niece. Powell and the minor children, identified by their initials, were also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Porter already was out of the vehicle when approached by deputies, who said they did so because of a mismatched license plate. The lawsuit called that out as false, adding that even if true, such an infraction would not warrant the treatment Porter received.
Deputies reported that they subdued Porter for failing to comply with orders to get back into her vehicle. She maintains that she did so by attempting to complete switching places with her father. According to her attorneys, Porter was “repeatedly punched, kicked, kneed, and struck … in the back of the neck, head, face, and stomach” as she struggled and prayed for her life.
McCampbell sat on top of Porter and McDowell dragged by her hair, resulting in chunks of braids being pulled out. Porter was thrown unconscious into a sheriff’s vehicle. The suit also alleged deputies McCampbell and McDowell lied about how long Porter was unconscious, with McCampbell giving the time as “no more than 20 seconds” and McDowell saying Porter had been unconscious for “five seconds” while in fact it was five minutes.
In the filing, their supervisor, Sgt. Roy Stockton, also was accused of approving their falsified reports that were submitted to the Solano County District Attorney’s Office. While Porter spent the night in jail, the district attorney declined to pursue charges against her.
The suit accused the sheriff’s office and Solano County of having a policy and practice of unlawfully allowing and ignoring racially discriminatory actions by their deputies against communities of color.
The lawsuit also maintained that Stockton was a part of an extremist group whose members have openly espoused racist beliefs.
At the time of the 2021 filing, Betty Williams, then president of the Greater Sacramento NAACP, called Solano County “the new Mississippi,” adding that the branch consistently receives complaints from Sacramento residents about being “beaten up and threatened” while traveling through the Bay Area county. Williams cautioned local residents to be aware and to routinely carry a camera, as they may likely be stopped by authorities late at night or in the early morning.
Almadani and local community leaders had called for the deputies to be fired, Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara to step down and for independent investigations by the state attorney general and the Department of Justice. None of those things happened.
McDowell was congratulated by the department in November 2024 for graduating from a program focused on “leadership development, personal growth, and ethical decision-making,” with the department expressing pride and anticipation for her “continued impact in Solano County.” Ferrara retired Sept. 25 after serving in the role for 13 years.
While Solano County officials didn’t admit wrongdoing with the settlement, Almadani says the agreement offers “some level of justice.”
“What happened to Ms. Porter and her family should never happen in our society, which values and respects law and order and the equality and dignity of all people,” he said.
“Having a badge is not a license to abuse and assault the very people that law enforcement agents are sworn to serve and protect,” Almandani continued.
Several settlements have been awarded to people of color in recent years following incidents involving law enforcement in Solano County.
In January 2024, the City of Vallejo agreed to pay $5 million to the family of Willie McCoy, a Black man who was shot at 55 times and killed in 2019 by officers after they encountered him asleep in his car in a Taco Bell drive-through.
In November 2022, Vallejo settled for $2.8 million in a wrongful death suit filed by the family of 21-year-old Angel Ramos, who was shot and killed in 2018.
In 2020, the city also settled a lawsuit for $5.7 million filed by the family of Ronell Foster, a Black man who was chased, pushed down a flight of stairs, beaten and fatally shot in 2018 following a “bicycle infraction.”
The officer who killed Foster, Ryan McMahon, was also among the six officers who killed McCoy a year later. Both the officers who killed Ramos, Zach Jacobsen and McMahon, were said to belong to a group of Vallejo officers who celebrated their kills in the line of duty by bending the tips of the stars on their badges.
Porter and her family lived through the highly charged incident, but say they’ve suffered lasting effects. In addition to Porter’s extensive injuries, the lawsuit detailed the psychological trauma suffered by Powell and his grandchildren, who were made to watch the assault and then left alone in the car for nearly an hour while it was searched. Powell was handcuffed and detained, while helplessly witnessing the beating of his daughter and fearing for their lives.
“Like any father, he wanted to stop the deputies, but he could not because they had badges and guns, and they had ordered him to stay inside the car,” reads the lawsuit. “He believed that if [he had] gotten out of the car, the deputies would have shot them both, which happens to people of color — people like him and his family — far too often,” it continues.
“These deputies treated us less than human and left a void we are still struggling to fill,” Porter said through her attorney. “I cannot describe what this type of experience does to a person, but I wish it on no one.”
Porter, who has since returned to her hometown of Baltimore, said she tries to maintain a positive outlook and approaches her recovery one day at a time. She wants to see “real change,” she added.
“This cannot happen again — to anyone.”
Editor’s Note: The body camera footage associated with this incident contains graphic content that some viewers could find disturbing or triggering. The OBSERVER is providing a link to the footage, released by the Solano County Sheriff’s Department, for those who want to view it: https://youtu.be/9rFwYkl5BZQ