Excerpts:
Emmett Brock, 23, a trans man who was driving home from his job as a teacher when he was beaten by an LASD deputy outside of a 7/11.
Brock was sent to the Norwalk station lockup and booked for three felonies [mayhem, resisting arrest and obstruction, plus misdemeanor failure to obey a police officer]. When he told the staff he is a transgender man, he said, they asked to see his genitals before deciding which holding cell to send him to.
Brock is now jobless and still facing criminal charges, all stemming from a traffic stop the deputy said was based on an air freshener he’d spotted hanging from Brock’s rearview mirror.
A few blocks from the school [on his way home from work], Brock spotted a deputy who appeared to be having a heated conversation with a woman on the side of the road. As he drove by, Brock threw up his middle finger. He didn’t even think the deputy would see it, he said. A few seconds later, he spotted a patrol cruiser following close behind him. It made Brock uneasy. He turned down one side street and then another, trying to figure out whether the cruiser was following him or just going in the same direction. The deputy didn’t turn on his lights or siren, but made every turn Brock did.
[After pulling in to a 7/11] Brock stepped out of his car, Deputy Joseph Benza approached and told him: “I just stopped you,” offering no explanation as to why. Confused, Brock replied, “No, you didn’t.” “Yeah, I did,” the deputy said. Then he grabbed Brock’s arm and forced him to the ground.
At one point, the deputy ordered him to put his arms behind his back — but Brock‘s arms were already pinned under his chest. “Even when I did get them out the way he wanted, he continued to punch me,” Brock told The Times. “He just kept saying, ‘Stop resisting, stop resisting.’ I didn’t understand why he was shouting that because I wasn’t resisting.”
When the incident went through the department’s normal force review process, officials cleared Benza of wrongdoing. One sergeant wrote that Brock was assaultive “with threat of serious bodily injury.” Another sergeant, listed as the watch commander, concurred, saying the incident was within policy and the force used was “objectively reasonable.” The sergeant also checked “no” on the paperwork next to the question: “Could officer safety, tactical communication, or de-escalation techniques have been improved?”
The Sheriff’s Department has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks for two other use-of-force incidents caught on camera, including one in which a deputy punched a woman in the face while trying to take her child.