Topless woman battles deputies

East Nicolaus High School was locked down Tuesday afternoon after a bare-breasted, shotgun-toting woman reportedly took a shot at a cropduster.

Sutter County Sheriff Jim Denney said the woman, Jaymi Louise Sanders, 47, possibly from the Pleasant Grove area, was walking near Pacific Avenue about one-quarter south of Nicolaus Avenue in south Sutter County, near the school.

“We got a call about 12:15, someone reporting there was a female carrying a shotgun and waving it around in that area,” Denney said. “We also heard that she allegedly had already fired a shot - but we have not confirmed it - in the direction of a cropduster working in that area.”

Sanders, during her jaunt down Pacific Avenue, apparently forced cars off of the road and began heading toward the high school.

“(Dispatchers at the sheriff's office) notified the school, and they put everybody on lockdown,” Denney said.

He also alerted Sutter County Superintendent of Schools Jeff Holland.

Wayne Tierney, superintendent/principal of the East Nicolaus Joint High School District, said the lockdown was brief.

“I don’t think it lasted more than seven minutes,” he said.

Denney confirmed that two deputies arrived at the scene about six minutes after the first call.

“The deputies encountered the female on Pacific Avenue, just south of Nicolaus Avenue, and found that she was clad only in a pair of jean shorts,” Denney said. “We are checking into the possibility that she was under the influence of a controlled substance.”

Deputies eventually persuaded Sanders to put down the shotgun and lie on the ground, the sheriff said, but when they attempted to handcuff her, she became combative.

After being subdued with pepper spray, Sanders was put into the deputies’ vehicle. She became agitated and “remained combative even in the car, and all the way to the jail, she was yelling and fighting,” Denney said.

Sanders, who also has gone by the last names of Patterson, Sandler, McDaniel and Rose, was booked into Sutter County Jail on charges of brandishing a weapon at a peace officer, a felony, and carrying a loaded firearm on a public street in a prohibited area.

This story is a corrected version of what appeared in prin. Appeal-Democrat reporter Kymm Mann can be reached at 749-4707 or kmann@appealdemocrat.com