A Native Northern California tribe sued Mendocino County, its sheriff and the California Highway Patrol last week, accusing them of conducting illegal raids on cannabis farms that “terrorized” the tribal community last year, including tearing up an 86-year-old’s vegetable garden. 

The Round Valley Indian Tribes and three individual plaintiffs are suing for unspecified monetary damages and a court injunction stopping the sheriff’s department from conducting illegal raids on their land. The lawsuit’s named co-defendants include Humboldt County, its sheriff, and the commissioner of the California Highway Patrol.

Lester Marston, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Law360.com that the July 2024 raids were part of Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall’s “good old boy” system of uneven enforcement of laws.

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“If he likes you, he cuts you slack,” Marston told Law360. “But if he doesn’t like you, or your face is brown, then he sends his goon squad up, knocks on the door and when the 87-year-old woman responds, the AK-47s come up, and it’s ‘get down on the ground!’”

FILE: Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall. 

Kendall forcefully pushed back on this characterization in an interview with SFGATE, saying that he........

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