Bay Area man pleads to assault on a cop, faces seven years in prison
A 31-year-old Vacaville man on Thursday pleaded no contest to assaulting a police officer with likely great bodily injury and resisting arrest on New Year’s Eve 2022. He faces more than seven years in prison when sentenced in the coming weeks in Solano County Superior Court.
Terrence Travon Mitchell, who appeared for a previously scheduled preliminary hearing setting, entered no-contest pleas to five felony counts and Judge William J. Pendergast dismissed seven others — including assault with a deadly weapon, making a terrorist threat and threatening a public officer — during the morning proceeding.
Mitchell, who withdrew his previous not-guilty plea, did not admit guilt to the single count of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of resisting arrest, and two counts of battery on a custodial officer, but his no-contest plea meant he would offer no defense.
The judge immediately found him guilty and ordered him to return to court at 8:30 a.m. July 30 for a presentencing report and sentencing in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
Official court records showed that the judge can impose a maximum sentence of seven years and four months at sentencing.
Well-known Fairfield criminal defense attorney Denis A. Honeychurch represented Mitchell during the proceeding, and Deputy District Attorney Alison Kennedy represented the DA’s Office.
As previously reported, Vacaville Police Lt. Frank Piro told The Reporter that dispatchers received a call at around 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 31 about a disturbance at an apartment in the 500 block of Markham Avenue in Vacaville.
A woman told dispatchers her boyfriend had “attempted to gain access to her home,” and may have been intoxicated, he said.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found a man, later identified as Mitchell, outside the apartment.
Officers “gave him some instructions to get on the ground,” said Piro. “He didn’t do that.”
As an officer approached Mitchell, an altercation occurred, said Piro, adding, “And one of the officers was violently assaulted by the suspect.”
He did not identify the officer, who, he said, sustained “a significant head injury” and was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Mitchell was arrested in the 4000 block of Plumas Court and booked into Solano County Jail at around 2:30 a.m. Jan. 1 on suspicion of the charges. His bail has been set at $200,000, jail records indicate.
Additionally, records show he faced charges filed in August for assault on a custodial officer with great bodily injury, resisting arrest, a probation violation, and misdemeanor petty theft, with total bail set at $101,000.
He remains in custody at the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.
The DA’s Office filed its criminal complaint on Jan. 4, 2023.