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The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office said last week that the 2025 death of a woman days after her arrest by Brentwood police was caused by a stroke and not by police restraint, ending a year-long investigation into her death.Â
“While incredibly tragic, Yolanda Ramirez died from a stroke and other health-related issues, as opposed to police use of force,” the District Attorney’s Office wrote in a report. “No further action will be taken in this case.”
The decision means prosecutors will not seek charges against Brentwood police officers Aaron Peachman and Danielle Tjhia, who detained Ramirez, 72, outside a home in Brentwood on Sept. 26, 2025.
Ramirez was found barely conscious and confused in the back of their patrol car 20 minutes after her arrest following an altercation with her sister over the well-being of their brother, an elderly man who suffers from dementia-like symptoms. Ramirez was then taken to a hospital, where she died on Oct. 3, 2025, according to the district attorney’s report.
Melissa Nold, an attorney representing the Ramirez family, said that Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton made the wrong call in the finding of death due to natural causes.
“This is after her office failed to investigate the case at all until there was public pressure, a second autopsy and I had investigated,” Nold wrote in a social media post.
After Ramirez tried to leave the scene when police arrived, body camera footage from both officers showed Ramirez was forcibly put into handcuffs and put into the back of the car, where she was left alone for 20 minutes after allegedly hitting her head on the outside of the car during her arrest.
Camera footage from the patrol car showed Ramirez, who was diabetic, slumped in the backseat and unresponsive when officers returned. She was later sent to a hospital, where she died.
A Contra Costa County coroner’s autopsy immediately following Ramirez’s death found that she died from a stroke and did not have any bruising on her head, ultimately ruling her death was due to natural causes. A second autopsy ordered by Ramirez’s family differed, concluding that Ramirez had suffered “blunt force trauma to the head” from contact with police and that her death was a homicide.
A coroner’s inquest into Ramirez’s death in July ended in a split verdict by a jury, with seven jurors ruling her death was from natural causes and eight ruling her death was an accident.
An inquest is a process separate from a medical examiner’s probe into an in-custody death and is when a jury reviews witness testimony and determines the manner of the cause of an individual’s death. Jurors were advised to choose between four possible rulings: accident, suicide, natural causes and “at the hands of another person, other than by accident.”
– Story by Griffin Jones, Bay City News Service
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