Brickbats: April 2025
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Benza III faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of deprivation of rights under color of law for beating a man who gave him the finger. Benza abandoned a domestic disturbance call when he saw Emmett Brock flip him off while driving by. He followed Brock for nearly two miles without ever attempting to stop him. When Brock stopped, Benza threw him to the ground and repeatedly punched him. Brock was charged with three felonies and, as a result, he lost his job as a teacher; the charges were later dropped when video of the encounter was made public. Several sergeants directed Benza not to include the real reason he stopped Brock in his incident report.
When Courtney Teague called Atlanta 311, a number for nonemergency city services, she did not know the person answering the call was working from home and livestreaming the call. She later got a call from a woman in Chicago who’d been watching the livestream and heard all of the personal information Teague provided to the city employee. A city spokesman said that the employee was removed from answering calls and no longer works for the city.
Natalie Walton got a ticket in the mail at her parents’ home in Kent, England. The ticket assessed a 75 pound fine ($94) for littering after an officer saw her drop a cigarette in nearby Swanscombe. But Walton says she doesn’t smoke, has never visited Swanscombe, and hasn’t lived in Kent for three years. She appealed the ticket, producing bank records of the shopping she did that day in Staffordshire, over 150 miles away. On further review, officials said the woman who dropped the cigarette didn’t look like Walton after all.
Kevin O’Rourke, a 64-year-old Canadian man, was sentenced to life in prison in the United Arab Emirates for possession of cannabis products. Authorities detained O’Rourke in Dubai International Airport after finding 118 grams of cannabis, CBD, and CBD oil. His wife says he suffers from Addison’s disease and the products are prescribed by a doctor for controlling his pain.
St. Louis residents say the city billed them for home repairs that they did not agree to and that, in many cases, don’t appear to have been performed. One owner said he was billed for repairs to the second floor of a single-story commercial property he bought, plus a new roof that wasn’t completely nailed down. The repairs are part of a federally funded effort to stabilize and rehabilitate privately owned buildings.
Emergency dispatchers in parts of England were told to ask some people requesting ambulance service to come to the hospital on their own. An internal memo from the West Midlands Ambulance Service directed dispatchers to ask callers with severe abdominal pain, who have fallen, or who are vomiting to bring themselves to the emergency room; during periods of high demand, they should also ask those who may be having a stroke or heart attack, or those with major burns, to get to the hospital on their own.
BeTreylin Elder, a teacher at Georgia’s DeRenne Middle School, resigned after being caught on video tossing an 11-year-old student across the classroom. The boy reportedly confronted Elder after the teacher made sexual remarks about the student’s mother.
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