Authorities said Wednesday that a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy had entered a guilty plea to violating the civil rights of a California teacher who was assaulted after he flipped off the policeman.
On February 10, 2023, Joseph Benza III, a 36-year-old Corona resident and deputy working out of the department’s Norwalk station, was en route to a domestic violence incident when he witnessed transgender person Emmett Brock give him the finger, according to officials.
Following that, Benza “abandoned the call for service he had confirmed and instead began closely following” Brock, and “at certain points reaching speeds of over 50 miles per hour,” according to a plea deal submitted to a federal court on Tuesday.
According to the court filing, Benza grabbed Brock and “violently body slammed” him to the concrete without “giving any commands” during the 1.8-mile pursuit that ended in a convenience store parking lot.
As the teacher “repeatedly screamed for help and shouted, ‘You’re going to kill me!’ ‘I can’t breathe!’ and ‘Please stop!'” according to the court record, Benza repeatedly struck Brock’s “head and face.”
Benza was “willfully deprived” of Brock’s “rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, including the right to be free from the use of excessive and unnecessary force by a law enforcement officer,” according to the plea deal.
According to federal officials, he will enter a guilty plea to one count of deprivation of rights under cover of law, a felony civil rights infraction that carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
According to a statement from U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, when an officer abuses someone’s civil rights, it damages public confidence in law enforcement and diminishes the efficacy of other officers who make sacrifices to protect the public. Our legal system has been insulted by this stupid attack and the attempt to conceal it that followed.
As of Wednesday, Benza was still working for the agency, but defense attorney Tom Yu stated that he anticipates his client’s termination.
Yu said that although Benza’s use of force was appropriate, the deputy should not have left the first domestic violence call and that he had been dishonest in several of his incident report details.
“The use of force itself was completely justified, but there were actions that occurred before and after the force that impacted how we evaluated this case,” Yu stated on Wednesday night. He also stated that he will request probation for his client from the court.
“There were allegations that he falsified certain parts of the report, which he didn’t need to.”
According to a statement released by Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna, it is “deeply troubling that a member of our Department, who has since been relieved of duty, violated the trust placed in them to uphold the law by abusing their authority.”
“These actions undermine the integrity of our Department, the trust of our community, and the safety of those we are sworn to protect,” Luna stated.
According to the court papers, Benza acknowledged filing a false report that omitted the middle finger incident and claimed that the deputy had followed the motorist because he had been hanging an air freshener from his rearview mirror inappropriately.
According to the plea bargain, Benza told three unidentified sergeants that Brock had given him the finger, and each of them advised him to omit that information from the incident report.
With the help of an unnamed sergeant, Benza concocted a phony account that Brock was “a threat to his physical safety” and then falsely stated that the victim had “bit defendant s hand,” according to the court documents.
According to the plea, Brock experienced head pain, vomiting, wounds, bruises, and a concussion as a result of the assault.
Brock claimed on Wednesday that he began crying as soon as he learned about Benza’s plea.
“I’m very pleased with this outcome,” he stated. “I’m still in shock, and I just feel very lucky to have gotten justice for this when there’s a lot of survivors of that don’t, so I’m just greatly appreciative of that.”
Three days after his arrest in February 2023, Brock lost his job as a 12th-grade English teacher at an alternative school for at-risk youth.
He was unemployed for eight months until he got his substitute teacher license renewed and got a job with the Whittier Union High School District in December 2023.
He said he has also been working at a homeless shelter since April and will be graduating with his master’s in sociology from Cal State Fullerton in the spring.
Brock said he still experiences some effects from the trauma of the assault.
“There’s a lot of anxiety still, even when I just drive my car every day, I am worried about being pulled over and being beaten, and I’m not sure if that’s ever going to go away,” he stated. “But this outcome brings me a little bit of peace of mind, as much as it can.”
Brock’s status as a transgender man wasn’t mentioned in Benza’s plea deal.
However, in aseparate civil complaintfiled in August 2023, Brock alleged that after his arrest and booking at the Norwalk station of the L.A. County Sheriff s Department, staff members asked him invasive questions after he told them he is transgender.
Brock said he told the station staff that all of his identification documents are updated to say male, but they still didn t know which holding cell to place him in.
He said they asked him questions like, Do you have a penis? and then a female employee brought him to a bathroom so she could see his genitals.
A trial for that civil suit is scheduled for October, said Brock’s attorney Tom Beck. He is seeking at least $10,000 in damages from both Benza and the sheriff’s department.
Beck said he’s pleased with the plea agreement.
“It’s my lifelong wish that people in law enforcement live up to their public statements that they disapprove of this kind of felonious behavior, and they will hold their employees accountable,” he said. “I can give you 100 cases in which they said that and nobody went to jail.”
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