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Joseph Benza III, 36, admitted to an incident in February, 2023 where he followed a transgender man in his car for nearly two miles before brutally attacking him.
A deputy sheriff in Los Angeles has pleaded guilty to assaulting a transgender man and violating his federal civil rights.
Joseph Benza III, 36, was charged Tuesday with one felony count of deprivation of rights for an incident in February, 2023 where he followed the man in his car for nearly two miles before brutally assaulting him once he parked. Benza pleaded guilty the same day, the Department of Justice has announced.
“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,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna said in a statement. “These actions undermine the integrity of our Department, the trust of our community, and the safety of those we are sworn to protect.”
The victim, Emmett Brock, was 23 and weighed about half as much as Benza at the time. Benza admitted that he became enraged after Brock drove by the scene of another case he was responding to and flipped the officer off — something legally protected under the First Amendment — prompting him to abandon the case and pursue Brock in his car for 1.8 miles.
Brock called law enforcement to report that he was being followed and pulled into a parking lot, at which point Benza grabbed him without speaking to him, and then "violently body slammed Victim [Brock] onto the ground," according to authorities. "Once Victim E.B. was on the ground, defendant Benza mounted Victim E.B., punched Victim E.B.’s head and face multiple times, and pressed Victim E.B.’s face into the pavement."
Brock was arrested and initially charged with three felonies for the incident that left him suffering from a “concussion, contusions and abrasions,” according to court documents. The charges were later reduced to two misdemeanors and then dropped altogether following the release of surveillance video contradicting the official version of the incident. Brock lost his job as a schoolteacher because of the incident.
“I'm in a state of shock,” Brock said of the plea deal to the LA Times.
In July of 2023, Brock told the LA Times he was driving home from work when he saw Benza by the side of the road engaged in a heated discussion with a woman.
Brock admitted he flipped his middle finger at Benza, saying he was upset about being sexually harassed earlier that day at work. Brock said he doubted the officer would see it. At the time, Benza was responding to a domestic violence call, but he admitted in his plea agreement that he immediately left that scene to pursue and retaliate against Benza for the insulting gesture.
When Brock pulled into the convenience store parking lot, Benza followed and used his vehicle to block him into the parking space. Surveillance video from the convenience store synched with the deputy’s recordings showed Emmett calmly speaking to Benza when the deputy attacked.
“You’re going to kill me,” Brock screams in the video as Benza body slams him into the ground and pounds his head into the asphalt. “You’re going to f*ck*ng kill me. Help! Help! Help!”
“He just kept saying, ‘Stop resisting, stop resisting,’” Brock told the LA Times. “I didn’t understand why he was shouting that because I wasn’t resisting.”
Benza initially claimed he pulled over Brock because of an illegal air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror and that he only punched Brock repeatedly and bashed his head into the pavement because Brock bit him and because he feared for his safety.
“My punches had their intended effect,” Benza wrote in his report on the incident, which he now admits was falsified to cover up his illegal actions.
“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,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna said in a statement. “These actions undermine the integrity of our Department, the trust of our community, and the safety of those we are sworn to protect.”
“When an officer violates someone’s civil rights, it corrodes trust in law enforcement and undermines the effectiveness of other officers who sacrifice to protect the public,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. "This senseless assault and subsequent attempted cover-up are an affront to our system of justice."
Benza is expected to make his first appearance in court in the coming days. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.
