L.A. sheriff’s deputy pleads guilty to beating transgender man who flipped him off

Emmett Brock was driving home from his job as a teacher in 2023 when he was beaten by an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy outside of a 7-Eleven in Whittier. Nearly two years after he was caught on camera beating a transgender man in a 7-Eleven parking lot, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has agreed to plead guilty in federal court to a civil rights violation for using excessive force, prosecutors said Wednesday. “This senseless assault and subsequent attempted cover-up are an affront to our system of justice.” Previously, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s internal use-of-force investigation cleared the deputy of wrongdoing. Three days after the initial group text, one of the other deputies — identified only as Deputy C in court papers — texted the group to relay a sergeant’s instruction for Benza to “toss the phone,” which federal prosecutors said was a directive to delete data from the device. Before Deputy C was interviewed by federal investigators in September of this year, prosecutors said, he and Benza discussed lying to authorities to explain their messages about the sergeant’s order to “dump” the phone.