‘I Can’t Die Like This’: Video Shows Trans Man Beaten By Deputy During Stop

Emmett Brock thought he was dying, and his mind raced. This isn’t sup­posed to hap­pen to me. This doesn’t hap­pen this way. I can’t die like this. He tast­ed the blood inside his mouth. He felt the fists land on his head. And he heard the shouts of the sheriff’s deputy on top of him, press­ing him into the pave­ment of the 7‑Eleven park­ing lot. Three min­utes lat­er, the 23-year-old teacher sat in the back of a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department cruis­er not even know­ing, he said, why the deputy had stopped him. Brock was sent to the Norwalk sta­tion lock­up and booked for three felonies. 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. That was in February. 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. 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. In that case, Sheriff Robert Luna con­demned the inci­dent as “com­plete­ly unac­cept­able” and relieved the deputy of duty. The FBI is now inves­ti­gat­ing.

Luna ran on promis­es of reform and has imple­ment­ed sev­er­al changes in the depart­ment since tak­ing office in December. He restored the abil­i­ty of over­sight offi­cials to access sher­if­f’s data­bas­es, turned over con­tro­ver­sial inves­ti­ga­tions to out­side agen­cies, ordered his deputies to coöper­ate with inves­ti­ga­tions and cre­at­ed an office to “erad­i­cate” deputy gangs. Citing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of lit­i­ga­tion, the depart­ment declined to com­ment specif­i­cal­ly on the Feb. 10 inci­dent involv­ing Brock, issu­ing a state­ment that said: “We take every use of force seri­ous­ly, and we do inves­ti­gate.” To Brock’s lawyer, Thomas Beck, that under­scores how far the Sheriff’s Department has to go when it comes to mean­ing­ful­ly hold­ing deputies accountable.
“They have not changed — in fact, they’ve become more stiff­ened against crit­i­cism,” he said. “The sys­tem that they have in place that they tell the pub­lic guar­an­tees account­abil­i­ty is a farce.” Before his run-in with the deputy, Brock already was hav­ing a mis­er­able day. He said he’d left his high school teach­ing job ear­ly after a co-work­er had harassed him for being trans­gen­der. It was­n’t the first time, and he was get­ting fed up. A few blocks from the school, 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. Growing unnerved, he called 911. “Hi, um, I’m being fol­lowed by a police car,” he said in a record­ing shared with The Times. He told the dis­patch­er that the car was copy­ing his turns, but not pulling him over. He said he want­ed to make sure it was a “real police car” and that he was­n’t being stalked. The two kept talk­ing, and even­tu­al­ly the dis­patch­er asked: “What is it that you want us to do? If he hasn’t pulled you over, he hasn’t pulled you over.” Two min­utes into the call, Brock cursed and hung up. He kept dri­ving, pulling up out­side the 7‑Eleven on Mills Avenue in Whittier, plan­ning to buy a Coke before head­ing to a ther­a­py appoint­ment. The cruis­er pulled in behind him, and the store’s sur­veil­lance cam­era cap­tured what fol­lowed. The deputy’s body-worn cam­era cap­tured the sound. As 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.

Still unsure what he’d done, Brock said, he began to scream. “What — what are you doing? Oh, my god. What the f— is hap­pen­ing?” For the next three min­utes, Brock strug­gled and screamed as the deputy held him down and punched him in the head. “You’re going to kill me,” Brock told him. “You’re going to f – -ing kill me. Help! Help! Help! I’m not resist­ing!” His mind raced, turn­ing over thoughts of all the things he’d nev­er get to do in life: Finish grad school. Be a father. Become a pro­fes­sor. “Help! Help! Help! I’m not resist­ing!” 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.” According to the Sheriff’s Department, two wit­ness­es saw Brock exit his car and strug­gle with the deputy. One of those wit­ness­es claimed that Brock punched the deputy, which cam­era footage does not show and the deputy did not allege. After Brock was in hand­cuffs, the deputy put him into the back seat of his cruis­er. At that point, Brock said, he was try­ing to make sense of what had hap­pened and why he was on the deputy’s radar in the first place.

It was only lat­er that he learned from the paper­work he was giv­en: The deputy said he’d spot­ted an air fresh­en­er hang­ing from the rearview mir­ror, sup­pos­ed­ly obstruct­ing the view of the road from Brock’s black Honda Civic. If Benza saw Brock flip him off, he made no men­tion of it in his report. According to the deputy’s ver­sion of events, the force was jus­ti­fied. “It appeared he was about to walk away from the car and myself,” Benza wrote as part of an 11-page inci­dent report. “His rejec­tion of my traf­fic deten­tion and his appar­ent intent to dis­tance him­self from his vehi­cle fur­ther raise safe­ty con­cerns. I know from my train­ing and expe­ri­ence that those who pos­sess con­tra­band items inside vehi­cles com­mon­ly attempt to dis­as­so­ci­ate them­selves from their vehi­cles when law enforce­ment is present.” Though he admit­ted grab­bing Brock’s arm, he said that Brock pulled away and “cocked his right hand back into a fist, indica­tive of some­one about to throw a punch.” Deciding Brock was “at the onset of assault­ing me,” Benza said he tack­led him to the ground, adding that Brock had “con­tin­u­ous­ly tried to bite” him. Benza then punched him “approx­i­mate­ly eight times in rapid suc­ces­sion.” “My punch­es had their intend­ed effect,” he added. He made no men­tion of Brock’s cries for help, or that he repeat­ed­ly told the deputy that he couldn’t breathe and wasn’t resist­ing. Instead, Benza’s report not­ed that Brock “attempt­ed to rip my skin from my hand,” which he said “could result in per­ma­nent disfigurement.”

A paramedic’s report from the scene did not men­tion any bite marks. And when Benza went to the hos­pi­tal lat­er, the emer­gency room report not­ed that he’d told them the bite hadn’t bro­ken the skin and there was no bleed­ing. A physician’s assis­tant wrote that there were “no bite marks at this time.” Medical records do show that Benza frac­tured his right hand in a “punch­ing injury.” In inter­views with The Times, Brock denied bit­ing the deputy, and his lawyer said it would have been near­ly impos­si­ble. “There is no moment that Emmett is not shout­ing or scream­ing,” Beck said. “And you can’t talk when your teeth are clamped onto some­one’s hand.” Benza did not respond to a request for com­ment. To Ed Obayashi, a for­mer Northern California sheriff’s deputy who is a nation­al use-of-force expert, the inci­dent rais­es red flags. “I just don’t see why this esca­lat­ed as quick­ly as it did,” he told The Times after review­ing the 7‑Eleven footage. “It just goes from zero to 100 imme­di­ate­ly, and there’s no expla­na­tion.” And after the vio­lence began, Obayashi said, the appar­ent lack of attempt to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion — espe­cial­ly once Brock start­ed to show signs of seri­ous dis­tress — was anoth­er point of con­cern. “There’s always a prob­lem when you have an indi­vid­ual telling an offi­cer he can’t breathe,” Obayashi said, adding that he didn’t see or hear any indi­ca­tion that Brock threat­ened the deputy. “This is a minor traf­fic offense at the most,” he said, “and we’re talk­ing about air freshener.”

Given Brock’s asser­tion that he flipped off the deputy, Obayashi sug­gest­ed that the minor traf­fic infrac­tion might have been a pre­text to pull Brock over. “This could very well be con­tempt of cop,” he added, ref­er­enc­ing a term some in law enforce­ment use to describe sit­u­a­tions in which offi­cers respond with vio­lence when they per­ceive someone’s behav­ior as dis­re­spect­ful. In California, he added, it can be grounds for deputies and police offi­cers to lose their state peace offi­cer cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In Los Angeles, such behav­ior could also vio­late the depart­ment pol­i­cy ban­ning retal­ia­to­ry force. Deputies took Brock to Coast Plaza Hospital, where he was treat­ed for scrapes, bruis­es and a con­cus­sion. Once he was med­ical­ly cleared, deputies took him to the sta­tion for book­ing. There, staff took his mug shot and fin­ger­prints. They took his shoes and direct­ed him to take off any jew­el­ry. He strug­gled to pull his rings off over his swollen knuck­les. By that point, he said, the pain was begin­ning to set in. “My head was just explod­ing. I felt like I got hit by a truck.” It was­n’t long before author­i­ties asked Brock for a state­ment, dur­ing which he explained that he is trans­gen­der. “So you’re a girl?” he said one jail­er asked. Brock said he wasn’t. Then the man asked whether he had a penis — and Brock said he did. He explained what surg­eries exist­ed, and said that he’d been on hor­mones for years. After one jail­er asked for proof, Brock said, he spent a few awk­ward min­utes in a bath­room show­ing her his gen­i­talia and explain­ing the effects of testos­terone. He was placed in a women’s hold­ing cell. It was a Friday after­noon and, with the courts closed, he wor­ried he’d be stuck behind bars all week­end. It was after dark when one of the jail­ers told him his fam­i­ly and his girl­friend had pulled togeth­er enough mon­ey for bail.

He was fac­ing three felonies — may­hem, resist­ing arrest and obstruc­tion — plus mis­de­meanor fail­ure to obey a police offi­cer. Four days lat­er, he lost his job after state author­i­ties noti­fied the school of his pend­ing charges. “I lost so much of myself that day in the park­ing lot,” he said. “But I love what I do, and it is kind of how I define myself — and for that to be tak­en away? It felt like I had just lost every­thing.” 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 sta­tion cap­tain agreed with the two sergeants below him. Only once the mat­ter went up to the divi­sion com­man­der did the report note room for improve­ment. “This sit­u­a­tion was very dynam­ic and evolv­ing, which required a split-sec­ond deci­sion to be made by Deputy Benza, since it appeared sus­pect Brock was try­ing to avoid being con­tact­ed. Officer safe­ty is para­mount,” Cmdr. Allen Castellano wrote. But since Benza’s vehi­cle had Brock’s blocked in, Castellano said, he could have tak­en the time to call for back­up while keep­ing tabs on the sit­u­a­tion before con­fronting Brock. Overall, he wrote, “based on Deputy Benza’s artic­u­la­tion that sus­pect Brock was bit­ing his right hand,” the punch­es “appeared to be justified.”

In March, Brock’s lawyer asked depart­ment offi­cials to crim­i­nal­ly inves­ti­gate Benza. In April — after send­ing a sec­ond let­ter — he received a reply assur­ing him the depart­ment would inves­ti­gate “in a time­ly man­ner.” That month, Brock had his first court appear­ance. Though he’d been booked on three felonies and a mis­de­meanor, pros­e­cu­tors ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to move for­ward with two mis­de­meanor charges: resist­ing arrest and bat­tery on an offi­cer. A judge reduced his bail from $100,000 to noth­ing. The case is still mov­ing for­ward. In a May email to the depart­ment, Brock’s attor­ney accused the deputy of false impris­on­ment and kid­nap­ping. “There is now proof Benza man­u­fac­tured the bit­ing claim upon learn­ing that the 7‑Eleven video caught him vio­lent­ly assault­ing and punch­ing Mr. Brock,” Beck wrote. “I would love to see the depart­ment turn a new leaf with this evi­dence,” he wrote. “My chief crit­i­cism of LASD over the decades has been the will­ful­ly blind eyes that apply to cit­i­zen com­plaints, no mat­ter what the proof. Let this case not be one of them.”