Michael Dietrick, the former Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed burglary suspect David Peláez-Chavez in 2022, will receive $5,226 per month as part of lifetime retirement benefits approved earlier this year through the county’s pension system, The Press Democrat has learned.
The fatal shooting sparked recurring protests and calls by Peláez-Chavez’s family members and activists for greater accountability, and, years later, is now at the center of a heated debate over the authority and reach of Sonoma County’s civilian law enforcement oversight office.
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Dietrick, 38, who worked for the sheriff’s office seven years, was granted service-connected disability retirement in February by the Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association board. That status, which comes with a higher payout threshold, is granted to county employees who are deemed permanently physically or mentally unable to work because of an injury or illness sustained on the job.
His first request for service-connected disability retirement came about nine months before he retired from the department and 14 months after the shooting, when the incident remained under investigation by local prosecutors, the Sheriff’s Office and the county’s watchdog agency. Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez ultimately declined to file charges and an internal affairs investigation by the Sheriff’s Office, finalized in July 2024 after almost two years, found no policy violations.
Attempts to reach Dietrick directly, by phone and email, went unanswered, and his attorney declined to comment. The Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, which represents patrol members, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Sonoma County settled a federal civil rights lawsuit with the family of Peláez-Chavez in May for $612,500. The shooting was the latest in a string of high-profile use-of-force cases involving the Sheriff’s Office. The county has paid out more than $13 million in settlements over the past eight years, although some of the incidents date back more than a decade.
On July 29, 2022, Dietrick and his then-partner, Deputy Anthony Powers, chased Peláez-Chavez, a 36-year-old migrant farmworker, through creek beds and rugged hillsides in the rural Knights Valley east of Healdsburg. Nearby residents had called in to report the man’s strange behavior and an attempted break-in.
After breaking the window of one home, he allegedly stole a truck before abandoning it. A toxicology report would later find methamphetamine in his system. During a 45-minute foot chase with deputies, a barefoot Peláez-Chavez acted erratically, called out for help and yelled in Spanish that he feared deputies would kill him. A short standoff followed, and as Peláez-Chavez bent over — just as Powers deployed his Taser — Dietrick fired his gun. Peláez-Chavez had been holding a rock at one point and gardening tools, and Dietrick told officials he feared the man was reaching for a rock he could have thrown.
In this screenshot from body-camera footage released in September by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office as part of a critical incident video of the July 29 fatal deputy-involved shooting of David Peláez-Chavez, the 36-year-old farmworker, left, is confronted by Sonoma County sheriff’s Deputy Michael Dietrick and Deputy Anthony Powers. (Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office) Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office
The shooting marked the second time Dietrick had killed someone while on duty.
In March 2016, as a police officer in Clearlake, Dietrick fatally shot 46-year-old Joseph Louis Melvin during a burglary investigation. Melvin, who was high on methamphetamine, had attacked him with a foot-long steel flashlight before Dietrick opened fire, according to a report by the Lake County District Attorney, who determined the shooting was justified in March 2017.
Dietrick resigned from the Clearlake Police Department and joined the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office in July 2017.
Though prosecutors declined to press charges, and his own department cleared him of any policy wrongdoing, Sonoma County’s law enforcement watchdog office, in its long-awaited investigation released in September, found Dietrick may not have complied with law and policy when he shot Peláez-Chavez.
Although the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach said Dietrick credibly believed Peláez-Chavez could have harmed him or his partner, it cast doubt on whether the threat was imminent enough to justify deadly force and noted several missed opportunities for de-escalation.
Relatives of David Pelaez-Chavez, from left, Aurora Castro brother Jose Pelaez, Yaranaxali Pelaez, and Alfredo Pelaez in teal shirt, attend a vigil, Friday, August 5, 2022 at Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa for the Lower Lake resident who was fatally shot July 29 by Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Dietrick. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat) 2022
IOLERO was unable, however, to draw firm conclusions, according to its 108-page report and Director John Alden said, because none of the three involved Sheriff’s Office employees who participated in subpoenaed interviews with the watchdog. Powers and a supervising sergeant, Nicholas Berg, sat for interviews but refused to answer most questions, citing their Fifth Amendment rights to remain silent. Dietrick left the department before IOLERO could arrange to talk to him.
The dispute over the extent of IOLERO’s powers to investigate the Sheriff’s Office is ongoing and has led to a standoff between the two agency heads — Alden and Sheriff Eddie Engram — formal complaints filed against Alden by a deputies’ union and a resolution to censure the sheriff by IOLERO’s Community Advisory Council, a 10-member volunteer panel that works to represent community views and concerns and build trust with the Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy’s departure
Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office and an attorney for Dietrick declined to say whether his work-related disability leading to retirement was related to the shooting. Many such personnel details are shielded by privacy protections.
Dietrick officially retired from the Sheriff’s Office in June 2024. Before that time, his working status in the aftermath of the shooting remains unclear.
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Juan Valencia said only that he was on paid administrative leave immediately following the incident, and that all other information requested about Dietrick’s employment and separation from the agency is shielded by California’s Police Officer Bill of Rights, a special set of personnel protections for law enforcement employees.
In an Oct. 24, 2023, deposition that was part of the lawsuit by Peláez-Chavez’s family, Dietrick said he’d been on light duty — a temporary administrative role usually assigned during a period of illness or injury — for about a year at that point.
The family of David Pelaez Chavez and a coalition of faith, labor, immigrant rights and police accountability community leaders hold a press conference in front of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)IOLERO’s report also mentioned Dietrick’s unavailability for a period of several months during its investigation, “for reasons outside (the Sheriff’s Office’s) control.” Publicly available payroll records from Sonoma County show Dietrick drew a far lower salary in 2023 and 2024 — indicative of some type of alternative duty or changed status.
Dietrick first filed for service-connected disability retirement on Sept. 14, 2023, according to Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association meeting minutes.
His application was rejected at least once before it was approved in February.
Generally, retirees granted a service-related disability pension receive half of their highest monthly compensation averaged over three years, paid out for the life of the member. If eligible, those lifetime benefits can go to a spouse until they die or an unmarried child that is under 18 or in school under the age of 22.
Retirement benefits for disabilities unrelated to work max out at a third of a retiree’s highest average compensation.
A member receiving disability retirement benefits cannot take a job with an employer in the same pension system, but could potentially still work elsewhere. State government code provisions allow for the reexamining of disability applicants in certain cases, including when a retiree is under the age of 55.
The pensions received by Sonoma County government’s retirees are public records following a lawsuit won by The Press Democrat in 2011, when mounting liabilities for taxpayers drew heightened scrutiny on the cost of public employee retirement benefits — in an era when far fewer private-sector workers have such guaranteed pensions.
As of Dec. 31, 2024, just over 700 of the county’s 5,911 pension recipients, are classified as disability retirements, either service-related or not. Between 25 and 45 such cases were granted annually since 2022, according to Cristina Hess, assistant CEO and chief legal counsel for the Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association, one of 20 independent county government pension systems statewide.
Across Sonoma County’s pension system, Dietrick, who is eight years younger than the average county public safety retiree and 26 years younger than the average county retiree overall in the largest current benefit tier, is set to receive more than all but 20% of county pensioners, according to SCERA figures.
Applicants for disability retirement, whether service-related or not, go through a medical examination and prove their permanent incapacitation. Their file is reviewed by an independent medical examiner and then the pension association’s disability committee before going to a vote before the full nine-member board, which is made up of four Board of Supervisors appointees and five elected active and retired pension system members.
In their vote, board members weigh whether the application meets legal standards for approval.
In May 2024, the disability committee recommended Dietrick’s retirement request be rejected, and the full board agreed, denying the application 6-1, with two board members absent, according to minutes from the meeting.
But, upon reconsideration nine months later on Feb. 20, 2025, the board then unanimously approved Dietrick’s retirement.
“The applicant has the burden of proving that they are permanently incapacitated and sometimes the medical evidence available at the time does not prove this,” Hess said. “We allow applicants to continue to provide additional medical evidence should they wish for their matter to be reconsidered.”
Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey, who serves on the pension board and voted at first to deny, said he was limited in what he could share about the decision-making process given the confidential medical issues involved.
He emphasized that decisions “are based on objective measures,” the opinions of medical professionals and a careful assessment by the disability committee, whose lead the full board follows.
“Having denials is not common, but it’s not unheard of either,” he said. When a different call is made later, “speaking generally, it’s often that there’s additional examinations or information presented.”
He noted that “the reports that come with these things are super detailed and very in-depth to the point of almost being invasive. It really gets into your medical and psychological condition on a granular level.”
Coursey estimated the board handles a few disability retirements a month. The county’s public safety departments — like the Sheriff’s Office and Probation Department — account for “significantly more” service-related disability retirements “than other jobs for obvious reasons,” he said.
Law enforcement officers involved in fatal shootings or other controversial incidents who move between departments or are granted disability retirements have drawn greater scrutiny in recent years. In 2024, an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program exposed secret deals at dozens of California agencies that allowed officers to voluntarily resign rather than be disciplined. The reporting also revealed the use of disability retirement as an incentive to encourage officers accused of misconduct to leave.
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law barring all “clean-record” separation agreements starting Jan. 1 and requiring all previous deals be publicly disclosed.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office did not answer a question about the existence of any such agreements with Dietrick, but he was internally cleared of wrongdoing, according to an internal affairs report. The department previously told the San Francisco Chronicle it had no records of such severance deals.
You can reach senior reporter Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or [email protected]. On X (formerly Twitter) @marisaendicott and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.
