Knock LA

This week, deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s West Hollywood Station violently arrested a disabled transgender woman inside of her home for resisting arrest. 

Annie Jump Vicente, 31, is a former employee of Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin’s office. She worked as a Venice constituent advocate in the city’s 11th district, and has also been a site coordinator for LA Family Housing.

Around 3 PM on Wednesday, December 7, Vicente was walking home with her roommate, Mariah Darling, from a nearby grocery store. As the two of them neared their building, Vicente spotted a sheriff’s patrol vehicle parked in front of it. She told Darling to continue inside, and she waited outside to see why the deputy was outside of her home.

Another unit parked nearby a few minutes later, and deputies exited and began walking toward the building’s door. Vicente inquired about why they were there, and the deputies told her they were investigating a domestic violence incident.

Vicente says that deputies had been to her home the night before to address an ongoing domestic violence issue in a neighboring unit. However, Vicente says they did not take a statement from the victim at that time.

Vicente says that, when the deputies tried to enter the building through a locked door the following afternoon, she informed them that she would not let them in without a warrant and directed them to call the landlord’s phone number. The phone number is posted on the door phone dialpad.

When Vicente would not let the deputies in, a deputy grabbed her arm and the door as it shut behind her, she says. The second deputy followed the first one into the building, and she says the two of them forced her to the floor. Her head was knocked into the wall in the process, leaving her with intense headaches and neck pain. Her smeared makeup and scuff marks from the deputies’ boots are still visible on the walls of the building entryway. 

Vicente cried out as she was knocked to the floor, prompting Darling to come into the hallway and begin filming. Vicente was handcuffed in the hallway, then hogtied. 

On the tape, reviewed by Knock LA, deputies say they have placed Vicente in handcuffs because she would not let them in the building. The video also shows her being carried out into the street while hogtied. The deputies lay her there for over a minute, misgender her, then drag her into the back of the car.

Vicente was taken to the hospital, then returned to the West Hollywood sheriff’s station for booking. When released later that night, she photographed the deep welts in her wrists from handcuffs that were too tight.

“A few days prior, I had a full public comment about [LASD] not doing their job at my building about domestic violence,” Vicente tells Knock LA. “And here we are. Two days later.”

LASD said in a statement this afternoon that deputies arrived at the building in response to a domestic violence incident and were not allowed in by a woman Knock LA has identified as Annie Jump Vicente. The department said in the statement that “in domestic violence incidents, every second is critical for the safety of victims involved. As a result of the female preventing Deputies from entering the apartment complex to get to the domestic violence incident, a use of force occurred and the female was arrested for obstructing the Deputies in the lawful course of their duties.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, police officers can only search a home with a warrant or consent of the occupant.

Jordan David, an organizer with the West Hollywood Social Justice Coalition and friend of Vicente’s, says he believes it is highly offensive to portray Vicente as an aggressor.

“Why would they expect her to hold the door instead of obtaining the door code from the caller? We have seen this kind of rhetoric and behavior from the WeHo sheriff’s department many times and it’s made one thing perfectly clear: they are not here to keep us safe. We keep us safe.”

LASD tells Knock LA that they will be presenting charges against Vicente to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. However, the DA tells Knock LA they have not received charges yet. 

Vicente has returned home and is planning to continue to speak out about her experience and call for accountability. 

“I believe that we can work together to have a better future … not enough people stand up to brutality,” she says. “I’ll speak out, and I want to encourage others to do so and to stand with me.” 

This article was update on December 9, 2022 to include the name of Mariah Darling, Annie Jump’s roommate.