By Mason Soto
In the still-dark morning hours of February 7 Vaneesa Hopson, 35-year-old mother and former nurse, died outside her west Olympia apartment while in the custody of the Olympia Police Department (OPD), following the administration of a “chemical restraint” by Thurston County paramedics. Hopson’s neighbors report that on the night leading up to her death Hopson was was not acting like her normal self, and at least one witness reports that she was trying to get people to call first responders to help her. Both neighbors and police reports say that Vaneesa Hopson pulled a fire alarm in her unstable state, to which first the fire department, then the police responded. Witnesses say that while she was calm with police as they handcuffed her the situation soon escalated, and videos from the incident show at least three policeman actively restraining her on the cement parking lot outside her home, giving her little room to move as she can be heard crying out in pain. At some point the cluster of police officers called paramedics to the scene and it was decided that Vaneesa could not be detained and transported without being sedated. In situations like this police and paramedics are expected to administer a class of medications known as “chemical restraints” that can include intense sedatives and antipsychotics. Sources have still not confirmed what exact medication was used, nor what the exact cause of death was, but her sister Heather Snyder, along with other community members are suspicious that the combination of whatever substances were in her system with the chemical restraints proved too much for her body, citing the fact that she died minutes after the intravenous drugs were administered. In an interview with The Cooper Point Journal Snyder explained, “I think she was on [drugs] the night she died… and I think when they gave her that shot to calm her down it killed her.”
OPD spokesperson Sam Castello has said that the choice to sedate was “solely a medical decision” that falls on the shoulders of paramedics, and officials continue to emphasize that all departments involved acted within protocol. An investigation to determine her exact cause of death and possible culpability is being conducted by Thurston County, but regardless of whether or not officials acted according to protocol Snyder believes that the incident was completely unjust, saying, “They killed my sister with unnecessary force… She needed help and was trying to reach out for it and instead they killed her!”
Speaking to The Cooper Point Journal, Snyder shared how Vanessa Hopson and her two sisters grew up in Oklahoma, raised by their mother in a Christian Baptist home. Snyder immediately recalled how Hopson had maintained close ties to her family for most of her life describing her as, “a mother, a sister, a caregiver… working while in school and taking care of our mother.” Their mom suffered from breast cancer that came back three times over the past decade, and her daughter Vanessa stayed by her side until they laid their mom to rest three years ago. In her twenties, as caretaker to her newborn child and her ill mother, she was still able to put herself through nursing school and graduate with a 4.0 at the top of her class. Dealing with her grief proved difficult still, and she suffered from addiction and run-ins with law enforcement that took a toll on her. Snyder describes that, ‘[Vaneesa] lost her license here because of a few downfalls, but she never lost hope of getting back on track.” A fresh start was just what she was looking for when she moved to Washington with her son in 2015, near her eldest sister who already lived in the state. Hopson confided in her sister how she liked that people in Washington were not as judgemental, and Snyder got the sense that her sister’s recovery was doing better despite some pitfalls, with Hopson preparing to begin to get her nursing license reinstated before she lost her life.
The night following Hopson’s death a march was organized in memorial and in protest of her death with about fifty community members congregating in downtown Olympia. Protesters marched in remembrance of Hopson and in protest against police violence, shouting Hopson’s name alongside the names of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant black woman who was shot and killed by Seattle police last summer, and John T. Williams, a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe who was killed by a Seattle officer in 2010. As the protest grew the crowd flowed out onto 4th Avenue, eventually blocking traffic. A video from the scene shows a silver Toyota Tundra as it inches up to the crowd, then revs forward into the crowd despite people attempting to guide the driver elsewhere. Screams abounded as multiple protestors were rammed by the five-thousand-pound vehicle, and other witnesses say that in those moments of chaos someone pulled out a gun and threatened the protesters with it. An ambulance showed up, then police in riot gear, waving their own guns around the scattered crowd, although the police reports from the night of the protest obtained by The Cooper Point Journal from OPD make no mention of the vehicle driving into traffic.
Organizing has continued as officials churn out their reactions to Hopson’s death and the protest that followed. Olympia City Council Member Renata Rollins spoke at a community gathering at the Artesian Well last week offering condolences for Hopson’s family, and there was a public hearing on February 20 hosted by the group De-escalate Washington about a proposed initiative to restructure the ways that police are held accountable for use of deadly force.
Vaneesa Hopson is survived by her two sisters and her 8-year-old son, who was released to the custody of her eldest sister the morning following Hopson’s death.
