Transgender man punched repeatedly by LA deputy during traffic stop

A newly released video shows a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy throwing a transgender man to the ground during a traffic stop.

Emmett Brock was driving home from his teaching job Feb. 10, 2023, when he saw a deputy "berating" a woman, so he flipped him off, and he said the law enforcement officer then started following him, and the LASD report shows the deputy pulled him over after spotting an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror, reported KTTV-TV.

“Hi, um, I’m being followed by a police car,” Brock told a 911 dispatcher, saying he felt uneasy that the deputy was following him.

Deputy Joseph Benza stopped him in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven, and surveillance video shows he used his cruiser to pin Brock's vehicle into a spot and threw him to the ground within 20 seconds into their interaction and punched him in the head multiple times.

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"He must've punched him eight to 10 times in the head, maliciously," said Brock's attorney Thomas Beck. "There was no reason for the contact. It was purely retaliatory."

Benza placed Brock in his cruiser, and he was booked on charges of mayhem, causing serious injury to a deputy, resisting arrest and failing to obey a lawful order.

"This deputy is a thin-skinned thug and what he did to this man on tape proves it," Beck said.

Brock told jail employees he was a transgender man, and they demanded to examine his genitals before then placing him in a women's detention cell, and he was fired from his job after the school was notified of his pending charges.

“I lost so much of myself that day in the parking lot,” Brock 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.”

The deputy claims Brock bit him during the incident, but medical reports show no evidence of injury, and he's planning to sue the sheriff's department over his treatment at the jail.

"[LASD] takes all use of force incidents seriously," the sheriff's department said in a statement. "The Department is investigating the information and allegations brought forward by Mr. Brock and his attorney. Unfortunately, we cannot comment any further at this time due to the pending litigation in this matter."

Video shows the deputy punching the man in the head several times. The report said the traffic stop was for an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.