Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office has rehired a California deputy who went viral for roughing up a 14-year-old boy on camera two years ago. An arbitrator ruled that the termination was too harsh and allowed for him to return to law enforcement.
Last week Deputy Brian Fowell quietly got his job back with the Rancho Cordova police — the sheriff’s office has a contract with the city of Rancho Cordova to provide police services — after filing for an appeal of the 2020 decision that found him guilty of using excessive force against a minor, Elijah Tufono.
“The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office will comply with the mandate of the independent arbitrator and integrate Deputy Fowell back into the organization,” a statement from the sheriff’s office said in part.
The reinstatement sparked outrage in the activist community. Local NAACP president Betty Williams said she is “pissed” about the decision to bring him back into law enforcement.
“I’m pissed,” Williams said. “This is basically a slap in the face to the community that he is back.”
She continued, “How can we trust your law enforcement when you know you have an officer who did something like this and you bring him back to that same community and you ask us to trust you? That is absolutely a slap in the face.”
The altercation between the officer and the teen was captured in a 15-second cellphone video in April 2020 and went viral causing millions to chime in, including then-Sen. Kamala Harris, who called the deputy’s actions “a horrific abuse of power.”
In the clip of the detainment, Fowell is seen grabbing the back of Tufono’s neck, pushing his face into the ground, and punching the teen three times in his arm. The clip does not show what led up to the incident or what happened after.
A person claiming to be Tufono’s sister posted on Twitter, “My baby brother who is 14 years old. All of this over a swisher there’s more footage but I wasn’t able to upload it all. Please repost, we just want justice for my baby! #Justice4JAH.”
“He was charged with ‘resisting arrest.’ But what was he even being arrested for?? For having a swisher? & they ended up letting him go so what was all of this for?? Smh he was left with scratches and chest pains! this was so unnecessary!” she wrote.
The officer approached the young man after he asked a stranger for some tobacco.
“And that’s when the cop pulled up,” Tufono said at the time. “And he asked me what was that in my hand. And I had gave him, as soon as he asked me that, I just gave it to him.”
He said initially he was not cooperative, saying that was his “mistake.”
Two years ago, after the altercation, the teen’s aunt Leata Tufono said at a press conference that he was emotionally and physically scarred, ABC 10 reports.
The deputy was terminated by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office after a professional standards unit investigated his engagement with the 14-year-old, determining he went too far when detaining him.
Fowell’s attorney William Creger filed his appeal on his client’s behalf in October 2020, claiming his termination was unwarranted.
“The sheriff’s office was entitled to take Deputy Fowell out of the public spotlight for a while,” the lawyer said. “The arbitrator said (Fowell) didn’t do everything perfectly, he could’ve handled it in a different way … but it didn’t need to rise to the level of termination.”
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