A. D. v. State of Calif. Highway Patrol

I. Facts

Around 2:00 a.m. on March 23, 2006, dispatch notified California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers Stephen Markgraf and Nathan Johnson that police were pursuing a stolen vehicle into their Oakland division area. The driver of the stolen vehicle was traveling without headlights at high speeds, using all lanes of the freeway. The driver, later identified as Karen Eklund, was the vehicle’s only occupant. Markgraf and Johnson intercepted and began following Eklund. When Eklund began to cross the Bay Bridge, Officer Sarah Wrathall and Sergeant Laura Clare of the CHP’s Golden Gate Division in San Francisco also joined the pursuit. Eklund crossed the bridge at over one hundred miles per hour and continued on city streets in San Francisco at speeds up to fifty miles per hour. Eventually, Eklund turned onto a street that dead ended into a cul-de-sac and hit a chain link fence. Markgraf stopped his vehicle broadside of Eklund’s and some thirty feet behind it, followed by Wrathall, Clare, and other patrol cars. Markgraf got out of his vehicle and drew his weapon, leaving Johnson (who was trying to remove his seatbelt) still in the police unit. Markgraf then ran to the right of Eklund’s…