California Woman Sues Austin Police After Officer's Takedown Causes Brain Injury
Finn's Take· TL;DR- California woman suffered permanent brain injury when APD officer slammed her to ground during intoxication arrest; unable to break fall with hands cuffed behind back.
- Officer Joseph Spees fired after investigation found unreasonable takedown, failure to de-escalate, and false incident reporting; police union challenging termination.
- Lawsuit alleges systemic excessive force pattern at APD spanning decades, citing 40+ cases; seeks compensation and mandatory training overhaul on de-escalation.
A Violent Arrest Outside Downtown Hotel
What began as a routine public intoxication arrest outside an Austin hotel escalated into a life-changing incident when former APD Officer Joseph Spees caused permanent brain damage to Natalie Gialenes in December 2024. Gialenes was visiting Austin from South Carolina when she was approached by police outside the Austin Marriott hotel on Cesar Chavez Street after arguing with staff just after 3 a.m.
The incident took a violent turn when Spees slammed Gialenes down to the ground after she bent down to pick up her ID . Because her hands were cuffed behind her back, Gialenes was unable to break her fall and struck her head on the pavement . The impact was so severe that her head hit the ground, "creating an audible thud," according to police chief Lisa Davis's disciplinary memo.
She bled heavily and was later hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury, along with injuries to her face, chest and feet . The injuries were so serious that Gialenes "required hospitalization for a traumatic brain injury and had to withdraw from paralegal school" .
Department Fires Officer After Investigation
Spees was indefinitely suspended from APD on Dec. 3, 2025, after an Internal Affairs investigation found he "violated APD General Orders by performing an unreasonable takedown on an intoxicated subject, failing to de-escalate, failing to care for an injured subject, and not accurately reporting the incident" . "Any objectively reasonable officer — and especially an experienced and well-trained officer like Officer Spees — should have been able to handle minimal resistance without immediately resorting to a violent takedown that caused considerable injury," Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis wrote in a police memo. "I would be doing a disservice to the community members of Austin if I retained Officer Spees" .
The investigation revealed troubling details about the officer's conduct. Internal investigations found omitted or distorted facts in Spees' written report, based on a review of evidence from his body-worn camera and hotel surveillance video . When Spees eventually got Gialenes into the backseat of the patrol car, there was a pool of blood where her head came to rest .
Lawsuit Alleges Pattern of Excessive Force
Edwards Law and Natalie Gialenes, a resident of Mendocino County, California, filed the suit on Monday , seeking compensation and systemic changes. "APD must do more than terminate the officer – it must acknowledge the department's systematic wrongdoing, revamp its disciplinary system, and change its training immediately, or more people will continue to be senselessly injured by APD officers," Edwards said .
The lawsuit goes beyond this single incident. The lawsuit claims APD "failed" to train its officers in de-escalation or "the extremely dangerous nature of head strikes." The suit listed more than 40 other cases as examples of a "larger, widespread pattern" of excessive force used by APD . Stretching back to 2011, the lawsuit cited the violent 2015 arrest of a Black elementary school teacher, another 2015 incident in which a jury found APD used excessive force against two Black men during a jaywalking arrest and dozens of cases that stemmed from the 2020 protests after George Floyd's murder .
Ongoing Legal Battle and Police Union Response
The Austin Police Association is defending Spees and challenging his termination. "The association, and I'm confident that when the facts are laid out before a third party and independent person, they'll be able to see that his use of force was justified, that he did try to deescalate, that there were no violations of policy, beyond maybe some issues with some report writing" , said union vice president Tyler Latham.
This case highlights the ongoing tensions between police accountability and officer protections. Arbitration is still in the planning phase , meaning Spees could potentially challenge his firing even as Gialenes pursues her federal lawsuit. The outcome could set important precedents for how police departments handle excessive force cases and whether officers can be held accountable for actions their own chiefs deem unacceptable.