Friday, April 01, 2022

FIRED COP IN CALIFORNIA REINSTATED AFTER TWO YEARS

by Bob Walsh

Back in 2020 Sheriff's Deputy Brian Fowell was terminated by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office for the use of excessive force against a 14-year old boy.  Pretty much the only evidence was a less than one minute cell phone video.  

At that time Fowell was working as a Rancho Cordova police officer.  Police services for Rancho Cordova are supplied under contract by the S.O.  Fowell appealed his termination in October of 2020.  This past Monday an arbitration decision came down, stating that while it was appropriate for some sort of discipline in this case sacking Fowell was unreasonable.  Fowell had an exemplary record up until this incident.

During the incident Fowell was attempting to cuff 14-year old Elijah Tufono.  The kids family and much of the press described the situation as a "beating." The officer, and his lawyer, described the blows struck by the officer as "distraction blows."  These are a generally recognized and accepted method of gaining control of a resistive subject, though the optics kind of suck.   The kid was on the ground and the officer was attempting to gain control of him.  

Fowell approached the youth after witnessing him purchasing tobacco.  The kid refused to identify himself and actively resisted being placed in handcuffs.  At the time Fowell was part of a Problem Oriented Policing team which was suppose to act on minor criminal acts which might be ignored by patrol officers.

The decision to reinstate was made by the Civil Service Commission and the arbiter. 

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