A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit against the city of San Diego brought by a father who blamed San Diego police for failing to thoroughly investigate several 911 calls from neighbors reporting violence at a Rancho Peñasquitos condominium where his adult daughter was found slain the next morning.
Attorneys for the father of Nahal Connie Dadkhah had argued that her June 2022 death, allegedly at the hands of a man she knew who broke into her unit, was “entirely preventable” and that the San Diego Police Department shared responsibility for her slaying. Parrish Chambers, the man suspected of killing Dadkhah, has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges and has been ordered to stand trial.
Attorneys for the city said the officers who responded to the 911 calls from Dadkhah’s neighbors arrived with guns drawn and tried to contact her for about 15 minutes, but they left the scene after deciding that was a better option than a potential “violent confrontation with a mentally ill man” or potentially violating Dadkhah’s Fourth Amendment rights by entering her home without a warrant.
“Although the murder of (Dadkhah) is tragic, the Defendants are not legally responsible for her death,” the city’s attorneys argued in a motion to dismiss the case. “… The question is not whether, in hindsight, the officers could have acted differently, but whether the officers had a legal obligation to act differently. They did not.”
U.S. District Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro agreed with the city, granting the motion to dismiss the case, but giving Dadkhah’s father and his attorneys the right to file an amended complaint.
The judge wrote in her 25-page order that the police officers’ decision to leave Dadkhah’s residence without making contact with her the night before she was found dead was “deeply regrettable” and “highly questionable,” but did not meet the legal standards to prove the constitutional violations alleged by Dadkhah’s father.
Attorneys for the father did not respond this week to requests for comment on the ruling.
According to the father’s lawsuit, the 45-year-old Dadkhah was a medical research assistant and production manager who volunteered at a mental health outreach center in her free time. The suit alleges that Chambers was “Connie’s stalker and abuser” who had previously attacked her in November 2021 and April 2022.
The lawsuit claims that police knew about the April incident and had noted a need for extra personnel for future calls to Dadkhah’s residence.
Around 4 p.m. on June 14, Dadkhah’s neighbors began to notice Chambers, who they recognized from prior incidents, “yelling and rambling” on the stairs outside her second-story unit, the lawsuit alleges. Two neighbors called 911 around 7 p.m. to report that Chambers was banging on the door and screaming, but the suit alleges that police did not immediately respond.
Neighbors placed five more 911 calls over the next hour, some of them reporting Chambers had climbed onto a balcony and broken through a sliding glass door, according to the suit. One neighbor reported that she thought Chambers was going to kill Dadkhah.
Police upgraded the call to a high priority, and a little before 9 p.m., officers arrived with guns drawn and making announcements on a loud speaker, according to the lawsuit. The officers knocked on Dadkhah’s door and called her phone, but never made contact with her.
After about 15 minutes, the officers left, according to the lawsuit, information provided by police and details from the criminal proceedings against Chambers.
The next morning, Chambers told a neighbor that Dadkhah was dead and to call 911, according to the lawsuit and testimony from a preliminary hearing in the criminal case. Chambers told a homicide detective that the sliding door was broken when he arrived and he cut his hand trying to clean up the glass.
He told the detective that he and Dadkhah had sex, then fell asleep cuddling on the couch, but when he woke up the next morning, Dadkhah’s body was cold and rigid, according to preliminary hearing testimony. Chambers said he didn’t notice any injuries on her; the Medical Examiner’s Office said Dadkhah died from multiple blunt-force injuries, especially to her head.
Dadkhah’s friends and neighbors immediately questioned the police response, with one neighbor telling the Union-Tribune shortly after her death that officers “didn’t do everything they could have to save her.” Police said Dadkhah’s death was tragic, but not their fault.
“At its core, this case involves the divide between the community’s perception of the moral obligation of police officers following a tragic incident and the officer’s legal duties,” the city’s attorneys wrote in the motion to dismiss the case. “Today more than ever, officers are required to make tough decisions in the face of civil liability and even criminal prosecution.”
Bermudez Montenegro ruled that Dadkhah’s father failed to satisfy the legal requirements of the claims made in his lawsuit, which included negligence and “a constitutional right to be free from state-created danger.” She ruled that although the officers’ decisions were questionable, they did not intend to expose Dadkhah to risk with no regard for the consequences and they did not take actions that exposed her to danger that she would have not otherwise faced.
Chambers is due in court for a hearing in his criminal case next week, and his trial may begin later this month. According to filings by his court-appointed public defender, Chambers has unsuccessfully sought to settle the case by agreeing to a 17-year prison term.
After the settlement offer was rejected by District Attorney Summer Stephan’s office, defense attorney Abram Genser argued that prosecutors had treated Chambers, who is Black, differently than White defendants who committed similar crimes. Genser used California’s relatively new Racial Justice Act to seek data from the District Attorney’s Office about the racial breakdown of suspects and victims from homicide cases that could potentially show a pattern of White defendants receiving better plea deals than similarly situated Black defendants.
Chambers’ case then became one of the central cases that led to San Diego Superior Court Judge Howard Shore being disqualified from hearing Racial Justice Act cases, and his motions department being dismantled. A different judge heard Genser and Chambers’ request for the racial data from homicide cases. NBC7 reported that the judge rejected that request during a hearing last month.
