Ruiz hesitated, then moved in to help because once a physical extraction began, the risks changed for everyone.
Evan pulled backward.
His legs pushed against the floorboard.
Keller shouted, “Stop fighting.”
“I’m not!”
“Put your hands behind your back.”
“Why?”
“Stop resisting.”
The phrase appeared repeatedly on the body-camera audio.
Later, lawyers would spend hours arguing over what it meant.
From the officers’ perspective, Evan’s body was actively resisting their attempt to control him. He twisted, pulled his arms away, kicked, and tried to slide lower in the seat. Those movements created a real risk of injury to everyone involved.
From the family’s perspective, and ultimately from the medical evidence, the deeper issue was whether Evan possessed the cognitive ability at that moment to make the deliberate choice implied by the word resisting.
Behavior and intent were not identical.
A person could physically oppose restraint without processing commands normally.
That distinction mattered especially in medical crises.
Keller threatened the Taser.
“You’re going to get tased if you keep fighting.”
Evan’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“Stop.”
“I’m getting out.”
“Then get out.”
He tried to move forward.
Several hands were already controlling his arms.
The result was more chaos, not less.
Evan’s left foot kicked backward and struck Cole near the shoulder. Cole swore. Keller pulled harder. Evan twisted sideways, partly out of the vehicle now, and slid toward the ground. The steep embankment made everyone’s footing worse. Cole fell to one knee. Ruiz grabbed Evan’s shoulder to keep him from rolling under the vehicle.
Then the Taser discharged.
Evan screamed.
The first deployment did not fully incapacitate him, partly because of poor probe contact and the awkward position. Keller used another cycle as officers continued trying to control Evan’s arms.
“Stop moving.”
“Put your hands behind your back.”
“I can’t!”
“Stop kicking.”
“I can’t!”
Eventually, with help from firefighters, officers got Evan onto the ground beside the car.
He was handcuffed.
Breathing hard.
Sweating.
Confused.
One officer said, “Dude, we do not want to hurt you.”
Evan did not answer.
Another said, “Then stop fighting.”
The ambulance crew placed him onto a stretcher.
By then, the seizure itself had ended many minutes earlier, but the neurological aftermath had not.
What happened next would later cause nearly as much controversy as the extraction.
After Evan was removed, Officer Ruiz remained near the car.
He had initially been the officer most cautious about the medical condition. His own body camera captured him telling others Evan appeared postictal and had shown no obvious signs of alcohol or drugs.
Yet once the ambulance crew began preparing Evan for transport, Ruiz shifted toward investigating the crash.
That was not automatically improper.
A single-vehicle crash could require investigation. Police could document the scene, secure valuables, identify ownership, note visible evidence, and under certain lawful circumstances inventory a vehicle before towing. Probable cause could also justify a vehicle search under established exceptions to the warrant requirement.
The problem was that the legal basis needed to match what officers actually did.
Ruiz opened the center console.
Then the glove compartment.
Then a storage area near the driver’s seat.
No warrant had been requested.
The body camera captured no officer saying they had probable cause to believe the car contained drugs or contraband.
Ruiz had already stated there was no alcohol odor and no drugs visible.
His later report would describe the activity as part of the crash and possible DUI investigation.
Evan’s attorney would later argue that the search exceeded what was justified by the circumstances.
The department would dispute that characterization and point to its authority to secure and inventory vehicles subject to towing under policy.
That issue never became as simple as either side’s first press statement suggested.
The timing did not help the department.
While Ruiz was inside the car, paramedics had Evan strapped to a gurney near the ambulance.
Keller approached.
“Can you hear me?”
Evan looked toward him.
“What?”
“Any alcohol tonight?”
“No.”
“Any marijuana?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
“No.”
Keller shined a light toward his eyes.
Evan turned his head away.
“Stop.”
“I’m checking your pupils.”
“Stop.”
One paramedic said, “We need to transport.”
Keller stepped back.
Evan was taken to the hospital.
No officer arrested him at the scene.
No citation was handed to him.
Yet several officers left believing the event might involve intoxication and interference with police.
The hospital began answering those questions.
Blood testing did not show alcohol.
Toxicology did not identify an active intoxicating drug capable of explaining what witnesses saw, although a cannabinoid metabolite consistent with prior marijuana exposure appeared at a level that did not by itself establish impairment at the time of the crash.
More importantly, the emergency physician documented a likely generalized tonic-clonic seizure with a prolonged postictal state.
Additional neurological evaluation followed.
Within weeks, after another seizure occurred under observation and further testing supported the diagnosis, Evan was diagnosed with epilepsy.
The crash had not been a DUI.
It had been the first dramatic manifestation of a neurological disorder Evan did not know he had.
His mother, Laura Mercer, learned the diagnosis sitting beside him in a neurologist’s office.
Evan’s first reaction was not relief.
It was anger.
“So I can’t drive?”
“Not right now,” the neurologist said.
“For how long?”
“That depends on California reporting and seizure-free requirements, treatment response, and follow-up.”
Evan looked toward his mother.
His independence had changed in one afternoon.
College.
Work.
Driving to see his grandmother.
Everything now required planning around a condition he had not possessed a name for until a car left the road.
Then Laura received the police report.
She read it twice.
The report described Evan as combative.
It described officers encountering possible intoxication.
It described physical resistance.
It described officers using force after Evan kicked them while they attempted to remove him.
Much of that language was technically grounded in events visible on video.
Evan had kicked.
He had pushed.
Officers had used force.
The family’s problem was what the report emphasized and what it minimized.
It mentioned the seizure information.
But not with the prominence Laura expected after learning that responders had been dispatched specifically for a possible seizure.
The report said Evan appeared confused but repeatedly refused lawful commands.
It did not describe in detail how often he asked where he was or appeared unable to understand that the car was in a ditch.
Laura requested the body-camera footage.
The process took time.
She hired an attorney.
His name was Michael Chen, a civil-rights lawyer who had handled police medical-response cases before. He warned Laura at their first meeting not to assume the footage would prove everything she believed.
“Body cameras are evidence,” he said. “They are not automatically your side.”
“I understand.”
“You may see your son doing things you don’t like.”
“I know.”
“You may hear officers saying things that sound worse when you already know the diagnosis.”
“I know.”
“And the legal question is not whether the encounter looks upsetting.”
Laura stared at him.
“What is it?”
“Whether specific actions were objectively unreasonable under the facts officers knew at the time, and whether any constitutional or state-law violation can be proven.”
Evan sat beside her.
“They knew seizure.”
Chen nodded.