{"id":153560,"date":"2026-02-12T22:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/153560\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T22:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:05:09","slug":"senate-clears-2-3m-claims-bill-for-st-pete-man-paralyzed-after-not-being-properly-secured-in-police-transport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/153560\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate clears $2.3M claims bill for St. Pete man paralyzed after not being properly secured in police transport"},"content":{"rendered":"

A St. Petersburg man is in line to receive $2.3 million after becoming paralyzed and losing both of his legs as a result of injuries sustained in a police transport van.<\/p>\n

Heriberto Sanchez-Mayen was originally awarded $2.5 million by the St. Pete City Council in April. But due to sovereign immunity laws, the city was only able to pay him $200,000 immediately, while the remaining $2.3 million required legislative approval for the claims process.<\/p>\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis must now sign off on the award (HB 6517<\/a>), which passed the Senate unanimously Wednesday after clearing the House, also unanimously, earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Sanchez-Mayen, who was homeless at the time, sued the city of St. Pete in federal court in 2024 over a 2023 incident in which he was arrested for trespassing. The lawsuit indicated Sanchez-Mayen was not secured to a seat in the jail transport van after his arrest, causing him to be thrown from his seat after an abrupt stop.<\/p>\n

Video shows the man being dragged unconscious from the van onto a concrete floor at the Pinellas County jail, according to the Tampa Bay Times<\/a>, which originally reported on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Times reported that Sanchez-Mayen sustained serious injuries to his cervical spine, leaving him paralyzed and requiring amputation of both legs above the knee.<\/p>\n

The city had initially denied Sanchez-Mayen\u2019s claim and asked that the federal case be dismissed, but ultimately reached a settlement agreement in March. The City Council voted to award the agreed-upon damages at a meeting in April.<\/p>\n

Sanchez-Mayen, on the day he was arrested in 2023, was sleeping on a cardboard box when an officer approached him. Initially, the officer, Sarah Gaddis, had indicated she would ticket the man for trespassing, but instead said she was arresting him, saying she \u201chad far too many problems with you,\u201d according to a Times review of body camera footage.<\/p>\n

The body camera footage also showed the interaction between Gaddis, Sanchez-Mayen and the officer driving the transport van, Michael Thacker, who reportedly told Sanchez-Mayen that \u201cafter a certain amount of these crimes, you should be a felon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A St. Petersburg man is in line to receive $2.3 million after becoming paralyzed and losing both of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[74091,74092,74093,74094,202,3351,204,203,199,201,200,18405],"class_list":["post-153560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-claims-bill","tag-heriberto-sanchez-mayen","tag-michael-thacker","tag-sarah-gaddis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-city-council","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-st-petersburg-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}