The daughter of a 66-year-old Black woman who died days after a confrontation with a Sacramento police officer is seeking damages in federal court. Nyota Koya, of Roseville, California, lost consciousness during an encounter with Sacramento police Officer Matthew Sterling on Nov. 17, 2024. She d ied at a hospital one week later. A lawsuit filed by Koya’s estate and her daughter, Nathifa Wright, accuses Sterling, the City of Sacramento, the police department, and former Police Chief Katherine Lester of wrongdoing, including excessive force, false detention, and wrongful death. Sacramento Police officer Matthew Sterling kneels over Nyota Koya, smiling. (Photo Credit: Estate of Nyota Koya and Nathifa Wright v. City of Sacramento, Sacramento Police Department, Katherine Lester, and Matthew Sterling) The case centers on an encounter at Haggin Oaks Golf Course, where Koya had become stranded after her electric vehicle ran out of battery. According to court documents and bodycam footage obtained by Wright’s legal team and provided to The Sacramento Bee, Sterling responded to a report of trespassing shortly before 10 a.m. He initially offered to arrange a tow truck and take Koya to a shelter. “Can we hurry up?” he can be heard asking her in the footage. Trump-Appointed Judge Berates Lawyer Representing Black Professor, Calls Him a ‘White Savior’ — Now She Faces Misconduct Probe Black Man Dies After Cops and Security Restrain Him After Entering Hospital Seeking Help for Alcohol Withdrawal, Video Shows “I’m 66, baby. I’ve got to get this together. I can’t even hardly put on my shoes,” she responded, according to the lawsuit. “My ankles are swollen. My car ain’t working, my phone ain’t working. And you’re sitting up there, talking mess to me, and knocking on the side of the [car]. No, you know what? It’s not alright. It’s jacked.” The situation remained unresolved for more than two hours. At 12:22 p.m., Sterling pulled Koya from her vehicle, forced her face down onto the pavement, placed his knee on her back, and handcuffed her, as the footage shows. A second officer, who had left the scene earlier, later returned. Paramedics arrived at 12:35 p.m. and found that Koya had no pulse. They took her to Mercy San Juan Medical Center, where she died. Wright says she has received no clear explanation of what happened during the encounter or whether the department held Sterling accountable. “Who investigated this, and what did they conclude?” Wright asked in an interview with the Bee. “Show me that. I never heard anything. She deserved respect. Not to be treated like a dog on the street. Or worse.” The lawsuit, which the plaintiffs filed in September 2025, includes 17 claims and is before U.S. Magistrate Judge Chi Soo Kim in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento. Koya’s family is seeking damages, while attorneys present evidence in support of the allegations. Bodycam footage included in the lawsuit captures the exchange growing increasingly tense as Sterling and Koya remain at the golf course. Sterling tells her he no longer cares about offering alternatives. “I’m gonna tell you what I’m gonna do now because I got to a point I don’t care anymore,” Sterling says in the recording. He then warns that he could arrest Koya for misdemeanor trespassing and take her to jail, leaving her vehicle behind. Koya asks him to take her to her daughter’s home in Roseville, but Sterling says that location falls outside his jurisdiction, according to the footage. When Sterling takes Koya to the ground, she begins crying and pleading for help. “Can you help me, can you, please…,” she says, her face against the asphalt. The footage also shows Sterling reaching into Koya’s robe pockets and emptying coins and cash onto the pavement. At one point, he says, “I’m done playing your game. I played your game for an hour and a half.” Sterling eventually brings Koya upright and directs her toward the back seat of his patrol vehicle. As he holds her beside the car, her head rolls back, and her eyes turn upward. He places her on the ground at 12:28 p.m. and calls for paramedics, but leaves the handcuffs on. Koya’s attorneys argue that she showed signs of distress that should have prompted Sterling to seek medical assistance sooner. The complaint states that she “displayed behavior that (Sterling) knew or should have known required immediate attention.” Also included in the lawsuit are two screenshots from bodycam footage that show Sterling with a wide smile as he knelt over Koya. However, the county coroner listed Koya’s cause of death as complications of pulmonary thromboembolism due to deep vein thrombosis, a condition in which a blood clot, often originating in a leg, travels to the lungs. The coroner classified her death as natural rather than a homicide. The cause of death has become part of the dispute over accountability. Andrea Velasquez, a deputy city attorney for Sacramento, said in an email that whether police caused Koya’s death remains “very much in dispute.” Sacramento police confirmed that Sterling remains employed by the department. He originally joined the department in 2022, the same year he graduated from the police academy, according to records obtained by Wright’s attorney. City spokesperson Jennifer Singer declined to discuss the case further, citing “pending litigation or confidential personnel matters.”  The lack of public information has frustrated Wright, who says California’s rules governing confidential police personnel records have made it difficult to learn whether officials investigated her mother’s death and took any disciplinary action. A 2018 California law, Senate Bill 1421, expanded public access to certain police records, including records involving officer-involved shootings and some serious uses of force. But questions remain about how transparency requirements apply when someone dies during a police encounter without being shot. Under current state law, police must release footage of officer-involved shootings, but those disclosure requirements do not necessarily cover deaths involving restraint or compression. Koya’s case has renewed calls from advocates for greater public access to records in such incidents. The Sacramento Bee reported that California Assemblymember Nick Schultz, a Democrat from Burbank, is considering legislation that would broaden the scope of police transparency laws following another fatal encounter in Elk Grove. In that case, 37-year-old Scott Saetern died after officers placed him in a restraint device during what appeared to be a mental health crisis and left him alone. The cases have raised concerns among advocates about how police departments investigate deaths involving people who experience medical distress while in custody. For Wright, however, the questions surrounding her mother’s death remain personal. She described Koya as a devoted mother who remained closely connected to her even after moving out of their shared home in May 2024. Koya had been living with two other women in Roseville but continued to play a central role in her daughter’s life. “She was my world,” Wright said. “We just had each other. Being a mother was a big part of her life’s purpose. If she was in conversation, I’d probably come up.” Wright says everyday reminders of her mother, including a plant Koya gave her and recipes they shared, bring the loss back into focus. “I’ve been lost,” she said. As the federal case proceeds, Koya’s family continues to seek answers about the decisions made during the encounter, the medical emergency that followed, and whether the officer faced any internal consequences. ‘I Don’t Care Anymore’: California Cop Grins for Camera While Kneeling on 66-Year-Old Black Woman Struggling to Breathe, Lawsuit Says ...read more read less