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A Hoopa man arrested after a bloody scuffle with police in October was held to answer today for attempted carjacking and several related charges, including an attack on a Eureka police officer who is still recovering from his injuries.
Judge Larry Killoran, after listening to EPD officers testify during a brief preliminary hearing, ruled there was enough evidence for 28-year-old Daniel Raymond Aubrey to stand trial. He has been in custody since the night of Oct. 8, after he allegedly tried to steal a woman’s van as she was parked in front of Courthouse Market. Then, unfazed by pepper spray and being Tased and battered in the face, Aubrey allegedly fought wildly until officers were finally able to get him under control.
The entire episode took place on Fourth Street, as traffic backed up and a crowd gathered.
It all began when Officer Matthew White was driving near Courthouse Market and spotted a jaywalker. White, testifying under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Steven Steward, said he rolled down the window and said “Please stop jaywalking.” Then the jaywalker, Daniel Aubrey’s brother Paul Aubrey, said there was something going on in a van parked about 20 feet away.
Both of the van’s sliding doors were open, and White saw a woman in the driver’s seat. She was calling for help.
“I could see in the back, an African American male on his back with a Native American man assaulting him,” White recalled. “A second African American male was trying to pull him off.”
Given the circumstances, the officer parked his patrol car in the middle of Fourth Street and turned on his “Code Three” lights.
“As I walked toward the van, Mr. Aubrey was being dragged out of the van … he started walking west on Fourth Street. I told him to stop but he kept walking away.”
Because Aubrey wasn’t acting aggressively at that point, White started to reholster his Taser.
“He stopped, immediately did a 180,” the officer testified. White dropped the Taser, and by the time he retrieved it and got back to the van, Aubrey “was now in another altercation with one of the African American males.”
He heard the van driver yelling “He was trying to steal my van! He was trying to steal my van!”
“I grabbed my Taser again and I did Tase him,” White said, “but it had no effect.”
Then the officer got his pepper spray and “had a direct hit in (Aubrey’s) face.”
Aubrey’s response was to lunge toward the driver and begin slugging her.
“After the first hit or two she opens the door and runs away,” White said. Aubrey also took off, and the officer briefly lost sight of him. When he spotted Aubrey again, he saw two other officers fighting with Aubrey on the ground, in the right lane of Fourth Street.
“Mr. Aubrey was able to get back up,” White said, “and I saw him elbow Officer (Spencer) Barrett in the chest.”
“I approached and I punched Mr. Aubrey a couple of times in the face, which had no effect.” Then, White pulled out his can of pepper spay and used the bottom of the can to slam Aubrey repeatedly in the face. Another officer tased him again. No effect. By this time Aubrey was bleeding profusely.
With some effort Aubrey was handcuffed to a gurney and placed in the back of an ambulance. White went to talk to the van’s driver, but that was interrupted when he heard Officer Barrett screaming “He’s grabbing onto my gun!”
White ran to the ambulance and saw Aubrey sitting upright in the gurney, blood pouring from his face. While he was attempting to pin Aubrey down, his finger slipped in the blood and went into Aubrey’s mouth. Aubrey bit him hard twice on his right index finger, leaving him in so much pain he had to get out of the ambulance and lie down on Fourth Street.
More than three months later, White is still only able to work half-time on patrol. He was told he has nerve damage in the bitten finger.
Barrett, the officer who fought with Aubrey as he was trying to flee, testified that he “tackled him in the middle of Fourth Street.” As they struggled on the ground, Aubrey overpowered the officer and stood up.
“I deployed my department-issued Taser,” Barrett said.
“And did that have any effect?” prosecutor Steward asked.
“No it did not.”
Barrett was assigned to ride in the ambulance with the EMT’s who were taking Aubrey to the hospital. Unfortunately, Aubrey “was still kind of in fight mode.”
“He made numerous attempts to grab my gun,” Barrett said. At one point he actually touched the weapon. Barrett was swatting Aubrey’s hands away and yelling at him to stop reaching for the gun.
Barrett said he witnessed his fellow officer grabbing Aubrey’s head, and he witnessed the results.
“I saw the muscles of his jaw clench, and I saw blood coming from Officer White’s finger.”
The van driver and her two passengers told police they had never seen Aubrey before. They had purchased lottery tickets at Courthouse Market and were parked in front, they said, when Aubrey climbed into the passenger door and over the passenger, then tried to push the driver out of her seat. Aubrey reportedly said something like “I’m going with the bitches.”
After testimony concluded today, Deputy Public Defender Adrian Kamada argued there was insufficient evidence that Aubrey was intending to carjack the van. The judge rejected that argument, noting that when Aubrey climbed into the vehicle he went straight for the driver.
Paul Aubrey told officers he had come to pick up his brother Daniel, who had been released from jail after an arrest for public drunkenness. The jail is across Fourth Street from Courthouse Market.
Paul Aubrey is also the brother of Antone Richard Aubrey, who shot their sister Angel Louise Aubrey to death during an altercation in Hoopa. It was Paul who took the gun away from Antone after the shooting.
Daniel Aubrey is scheduled for arraignment on Feb. 10.
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