Cop fired for striking 14-year-old in Rancho Cordova returns to duty at Sheriff’s Office
The Rancho Cordova police officer who was fired in 2020 for a use-of-force incident that went viral online has been reinstated, the officer’s attorney said.
Deputy Brian Fowell was terminated by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office — which has a contract to provide law enforcement for the city of Rancho Cordova — when a professional standards unit investigation concluded Fowell used excessive force against a 14-year-old boy.
The incident was captured in a cellphone video less than a minute long, posted in April 2020, and spread across social media, garnering millions of views, and was even retweeted by then-Sen. and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who called it “a horrific abuse of power.”
Fowell appealed his termination in October 2020. And in a decision released last week, he won his job back.
An arbitrator, an independent judge for internal police matters, ruled in Fowell’s favor.
William Creger, Fowell’s attorney, said the arbitrator said in his ruling that while the Sheriff’s Office was entitled to discipline Fowell, termination in this case wasn’t warranted.
“The sheriff’s office was entitled to take Deputy Fowell out of the public spotlight for awhile,” Creger 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.”
Creger said Fowell’s exemplary record as an officer also factored into the arbitrator’s decision. In 2019, Fowell was awarded employee of the quarter in 2019. That same year, he also earned a life-saving medal when he performed CPR on a young girl who was dying in front her family.
Because peace officer personnel records are still broadly protected by California law, Creger said he was unable to provide more detail. A Sacramento Bee request for the Sheriff’s Office investigation into the incident was denied, saying the case did not fall within existing public records law.
Family called incident a police ‘beating’
The incident involving Fowell dominated local and national headlines in the weeks before Black Lives Matter protests swept across the U.S. in the wake of the May 2020 death of George Floyd. The video clip was shared millions of times on social media.
The family of the teen, identified as Elijah Tufono, called the incident a “beating” at the time.
In the video, Fowell can be seen pushing Tufono’s head into the ground as he tries to turn the teen onto his stomach. When the boy doesn’t turn over and instead moves onto his back again, Fowell strikes Tufono in the abdomen twice. He then grabs Tufono’s right wrist and jerks his face down on the ground, pinning his arm behind his back.
Fowell had contacted the teen in the area of Mills Station Road and Mather Field Road after witnessing what he believed to be a hand-to-hand sale of tobacco. When Fowell approached Tufono, the teen refused to identify himself, the Sheriff’s Office said at the time.
“Having reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was occurring, the deputy attempted to detain the juvenile so he could conduct further investigation,” the Sheriff’s Office said at the time. “The juvenile became physically resistive at that time, causing the deputy to lose control of his handcuffs, which landed several feet away.”
Tufono’s family, represented by John Burris, an Oakland-based civil rights attorney, filed a claim against the county in 2020, alleging excessive force.
“This officer was just a bully. He was out of control,” Burris said during May 2020 news conference. “And the way he treated the young minor was just outrageous, and certainly pathetic for an old, grown man to treat a 14-year-old boy the way he did.”
Creger said the Sheriff’s Office cited excessive force as their reason for termination, taking specific issue with the “distraction blows” Fowell used against Tufono.
A distraction blow is a direct strike or kick that is used to distract a suspect long enough for the officer to gain control or compliance.
Sacramento deputy ‘relieved’
The Sheriff’s Office also argued during the appeal process that Fowell never should’ve contacted the teen over such a “low-level crime,” Creger said. However, the arbitrator said as a member of the Problem-Oriented Policing team, Fowell was doing his job when confronting the teen over what he believed to be an illegal sale of tobacco to a minor.
Ed Obayashi, deputy sheriff of Plumas County and a statewide use-of-force expert, said at the time that Fowell’s use of distraction blows were justified because he needed to gain control of the situation as quickly as possible.
“At the end of the day, this was a good cop,” Obayashi said of the arbitrator’s decision.
“The decision to reinstate Deputy Brian Fowell is within the sole purview of the Civil Service Commission and the arbitrator that heard the case,” the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office will comply with the mandate of the of the Civil Service Commission and integrate Deputy Fowell back into the organization.”
“I think (Fowell) just feels relieved,” Creger said of the decision. “He’s glad it’s over. ... He just wanted to be a cop. This decision is important to him because it allows him to continue doing what he’s always wanted to do.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.