Santa Rosa to pay $300,000 over wrongful arrest at gunpoint during 2023 homicide probe

Two Santa Rosa residents who were held at gunpoint and briefly arrested during a 2023 homicide investigation will receive $300,000 in a legal settlement with the city.

A memorial for the person stabbed on Mendocino Avenue and Carrillo Street in Santa Rosa, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. Photo taken Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat file)

COLIN ATAGI

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

May 12, 2025

The city of Santa Rosa will pay $300,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by two residents who say they were wrongfully arrested at gunpoint during a fatal stabbing investigation near downtown.

The lawsuit, filed in March 2024 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, stemmed from the Feb. 1, 2023, killing of Asante VanDyke outside Gary’s at Belvedere on Mendocino Avenue.

Two days after the stabbing, officers stopped Esabela Gatlin and Ashley Singh in a parking lot on Cleveland Avenue. Gatlin, who is the sister of one of the suspects, was driving Singh to work when six Santa Rosa police officers pulled up, ordered them out of the car at gunpoint and handcuffed them, according to the lawsuit.

Gatlin and Singh were never charged. In their complaint, they accused police of false arrest, excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, and other violations of their civil rights.

The city finalized the settlement last month, with each of the two receiving $150,000. Assistant City Manager Jason Nutt said the settlement isn’t an admission of wrongdoing but “common practice” to benefit all parties.

“The city determined that the involved officers conducted themselves with professionalism during the early stages of an underlying homicide investigation, and treated plaintiffs with dignity and respect throughout the entirety of the encounter,” he said.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Jerry Steering, called the payout “adequate” for an arrest that lasted about an hour.

“The officers didn’t know what to do with the plaintiffs that they had arrested,” Steering said. “So they took them to the Santa Rosa Police Department, had a friendly chat with them for an hour and then drove them home.”

Prosecutors later charged Richard Ponce and Braulio Garcia III in VanDyke’s killing. Both face counts of murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

According to prosecutors, Garcia stabbed VanDyke in the chest and stomach after a brief encounter outside the bar. When VanDyke’s friends tried to intervene, prosecutors said Garcia stabbed two of them and Ponce shot one in the arm.

Ponce pleaded no contest in February to reduced charges of assault with a semiautomatic weapon and assault likely to produce great bodily injury. He was sentenced March 27 to 10 years in prison. Garcia’s case is ongoing.

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi