Charges dropped against Black trans man beaten by LASD Deputy

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced this past week that it has dropped all criminal charges against a former 23-year-old trans male high school teacher involved in a violent arrest incident that took place last February in Whitter just outside a convenience mart.

Brock had pulled into the front parking spaces of the 7-Eleven on Mills Avenue in Whittier last February 10 and as he exited his Black Honda Civic he was confronted by an LASD deputy, later identified by the Los Angeles Timesas Deputy Joseph Benza.

The confrontation, caught on the deputy’s body cam as well as the convenience store’s video surveillance system, escalated and Benza is seen on top of Brock, pressing him into the concrete and punching him multiple times in the head. The altercation lasted around three minutes before Brock was cuffed and put into the patrol vehicle. Brock was screaming for help the entire time, yelling that the deputy was going kill him and that he was not resisting arrest. This was documented by the audio from both videos.

Brock lost his job as a teacher as he’d been booked on three felonies and a misdemeanor. The LA County District Attorney later downgraded the charges 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 Los Angeles Times on Thursday reported that prosecutors decided to drop the charges, reporting that previously the department cleared Deputy Benza of wrongdoing but Brock lost his teaching job due to the pending charges against him. On Thursday, he told the Times that news of the dismissal came as a relief and that his lawyer still plans to ask a court to declare him factually innocent.

“I am feeling relieved that the district attorney made the right choice and chose justice,” Brock said. “But I will feel more relieved when I get my job back.”

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said only that the case was tossed “due to insufficient evidence.”

The decision to drop the charges comes days after Brock’s lawyer formally filed paperwork accusing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department of a cover-up, saying that several deputies made false accusations to put his client behind bars with “excessive” bail.

Brock, who was taken to the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station after his arrest says that when he informed Sheriff’s personnel of his gender identity, he became humiliated when they asked to see his genitals before deciding which holding cell to put him in.

The Times reported:

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.

The Sheriff’s Department in a statement said that a use-offorce review cleared Deputy Benza but that other aspects of Brock’s allegations were still under investigation.

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department takes all use of force incidents seriously,” the department wrote. “Unfortunately, we cannot comment any further at this time due to the pending litigation in this matter.”