Emmett Brock thought he was dying, and his mind raced. “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 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. 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. Concerning the February incident the department has issued a statement saying “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.
