Berkeley protester charged with throwing apple

A protester who was arrested during a large anti-fascist demonstration in Berkeley on Sunday was charged Tuesday with misdemeanor resisting arrest and misdemeanor assault on a police officer, according to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

Yesania Mendez, 23, was one 13 people who were arrested during the protest on Sunday that drew more than 4,000 people, according to Berkeley police.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Terry Wiley alleged in charging documents that Mendez obstructed Berkeley police Officer Nicholas Turney and then attempted to commit a violent injury on him.

Berkeley police said they don’t know what city Mendez is from.

District Attorney spokeswoman Rebecca Richardson said Mendez is the only person arrested on Sunday who’s been charged so far.

Turney wrote in a probable cause statement that at about 12:55 p.m. on Sunday he was on duty, in uniform, when Mendez:

“… threw an apple at me at a high velocity, while wearing a purple bandana as a mask to conceal her face. … She threw the apple so hard that it exploded when it made contact with the ground.”

Turney wrote that officers tried to take Mendez into custody but she “knowingly and willfully refused to comply with lawful orders” and “ran from and actively resisted police” as they tried to take her into custody.

Turney alleged that, “Mendez used her large German Shepherd and the crowd as a defense mechanism to evade arrest” but was eventually taken to the ground near the corner of Allston and Martin Luther King Jr. ways and placed in handcuffs.

But Turner said that while Mendez was being escorted to the nearby Berkeley City Jail she “escaped her handcuffs and ran from police.” However, he said officers caught up with her a short time later and she was later booked her into the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

Mendez initially was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest and unlawfully wearing a mask.