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A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was convicted of a felony connection to his violent actions against a Black woman in 2023 outside a supermarket. Despite having faced a decade in prison, his sentence just got turned into a slap on the wrist. 

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Trevor Kirk was seen on video yanking a Black woman by her shirt and neck onto the ground outside the WinCo supermarket in Lancaster. As he pinned her on the ground with his knee to her groin, he mushed her face and called for backup. Kirk was reportedly responding to an alleged burglary and matched a man to the description of the suspect. The woman got into the mix after she announced to the police that she was recording the arrest and demanded they tell the man why he was being arrested, per CBS News. 

Kirk then walked up to the woman and immediately got physical. He also pressed his knee into the woman’s neck and pepper-sprayed her twice in the face, body camera footage shows. 

Prosecutors accused him of using his LASD radio to mislead his colleagues that he was “in a fight” when he was obviously dominating the woman per the videos, the report says. As a result, the lady suffered head trauma and injuries to her arms and wrists. 

Following a three-day trial, he was found guilty of a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law, putting him at risk of 10 years in prison. However, upon the swearing in of a new U.S. attorney, the government doubled back and hired a third party to review the case, per The Los Angeles Times. They then asked the court to allow them to offer the deputy a misdemeanor plea deal despite the jury verdict. Kirk was then facing only a year in prison.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson granted the request Monday, sentencing Kirk to only four measly months in prison. This decision comes around the same time President Donald Trump released an executive order vowing to “unleash high-impact local police forces and protect and defend law enforcement officers wrongly accused and abused by State or local officials.” 

We’re not saying politics influenced the government’s change of heart in the case. Though, even the judge was taken aback by the sudden shift. 

“In my view, the jury verdict was fully supported and the case was not unfairly argued, as the government at some early point argued,” said Judge Wilson, via the Los Angeles Times. “The job of a police officer is a very difficult one … but with those factors in mind, there is a responsibility to act appropriately.”