Man puts up fight during arrest Tuesday
Guillermo Martinez was allegedly kicking signs at train station
Guillermo Martinez
Tuesday afternoon just before 5 p.m., Traci McMahan, owner of Paso Robles Tech at 843 7th St. in Paso Robles, said she and her staff saw two uniformed and one plain-clothed Paso Robles Police Department officers arrest a man right in front of her business.
Paso Robles Lt. Tim Murphy said the department received multiple calls about a person acting strangely near the train station on Pine Street at 8th Street. He said it was reported that the person was kicking signs.
McMahan said they didn’t see the officers initially approach the man, but took notice when they heard loud screaming coming from outside. She said the man was screaming, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.”
Murphy said that the man, Guillermo Martinez, 47, of Corcoran, was uncooperative right from the get-go. Martinez was arrested for public intoxication and resisting arrest. Murphy said the charge of resisting arrest was added when Martinez started to resist physically.
McMahan said the man was really putting up a fight, resisting arrest, which prompted the officers to take him down to the ground. Once he was in cuffs and about to be put into the police car, McMahan said, he put up another fight. She wasn’t sure if at some point he fell or the police took him down again, but in that fall he hit his head and blood was seen on the sidewalk where he fell. Two more officers arrived on the scene after the man initially resisted arrest.
Murphy said that while he didn’t have the statistics available, resisting arrest does happen and the officers are trained to handle it. The officers are equipped with different tools to aid in the arrest of a difficult suspect in a manner that protects the suspect, witnesses and officers. The first tool they utilize is to gain control physically without any other tools. Murphy said that officers were able to gain control with only physical control, which did result in officers taking Martinez down to the ground twice.
McMahan said that because the arrest was happening right outside Paso Robles Tech’s windows, the employees watching did not take out their phones to take photos because they didn’t want to be a distraction while the officers struggled to get control of the situation.
Martinez was booked into the San Luis Obispo County Jail on Tuesday and as of Wednesday morning he was no longer in custody.
