Officer who used excessive force allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor
after felony conviction
[June 06, 2025]
By JAIMIE DING
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles sheriff's deputy will serve four months
in prison on a misdemeanor conviction for using excessive force after
the new Trump-appointed U.S. attorney offered an unusual plea deal
despite a jury convicting him of a felony.
The victim's attorney asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the
felony conviction, but the court declined to do so on Thursday.
Deputy Trevor Kirk was recorded tackling and pepper-spraying an older
woman while she filmed a man being handcuffed outside a supermarket in
June 2023. A federal jury in February found Kirk guilty of one felony
count of deprivation of rights under color of law, a crime that carries
a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Felony convictions also prevent law
enforcement officials from continuing to serve or owning a gun.
But when U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli took office a few months later,
federal prosecutors offered Kirk a plea deal — a dismissal of the felony
if Kirk pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, and a recommendation of one
year of probation. A judge agreed to the lessened charge but sentenced
Kirk to four months in prison on Monday.
Essayli said in a video posted online that prosecutors also offered Kirk
a misdemeanor plea agreement under the prior administration, which he
turned down.
“After reviewing this case extensively and thoroughly and carefully
reviewing the facts and the law, I made the decision to re-extend the
misdemeanor plea agreement to Deputy Kirk,” Essayli said.
In court filings signed off by Essayli, prosecutors wrote they believed
that Kirk's actions fell on the lower end of the excessive force
spectrum, the woman did not suffer “serious bodily injury," and that the
case was prosecuted improperly.
Some former prosecutors and police conviction experts called the step
highly unusual, especially without any indication of prosecutorial
misconduct, ethical violations or new evidence in the case. It follows
President Donald Trump's vow to “protect and defend" law enforcement
officers from prosecution and his efforts to assert greater control over
the U.S. Justice Department.
“It’s very unusual to offer a plea deal after a conviction,” said
Jeffrey Bellin, a former federal prosecutor from Washington, D.C., who
is now a law professor at William and Mary Law School. In cases where it
could happen, there's usually new evidence of innocence, “not just the
same evidence from a different perspective,” he said.
Kirk's attorney, Tom Yu, said they filed a motion for acquittal that was
denied but planned to appeal the decision.
The encounter
Caree Harper, who represents the woman Kirk injured, said in court
filings that the federal government changed its account of the incident
to make Kirk's actions seem justified.
In the original indictment, prosecutors wrote Kirk “violently” threw the
woman to the ground. In the new plea agreement, the government alleged
the woman “swatted” at Kirk and “resisted,” Harper wrote, which she said
was not proven in the criminal trial nor testified to in civil
litigation.
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In this image taken from police body camera footage provided by Los
Angeles Sheriff's office, a Sheriff's deputies arrests a couple in a
grocery store parking lot in Lancaster, Calif., on June 24, 2023.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)
She said her client did not commit a crime, had no weapon, and did
not try to flee or resist. She suffered from a black eye, a
fractured bone in her right wrist, multiple bruises, scratches and
significant chemical burning from the pepper-spray.
Harper said the plea agreement sent a “dangerous message” that law
enforcement officials could be convicted of a felony and still “cut
a backroom deal after the trial.”
Philip Stinson, a former police officer and attorney who studies
police misconduct, said the plea deal offered to Kirk was “seemingly
without precedent” in federal court cases prosecuting police
officers for their on-duty crimes, according to his search of an
internal database of more than 24,000 arrest cases in the last 20
years involving sworn law enforcement officers.
LA County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Nicole Nishida said Kirk
will remain employed with the agency but relieved from duty while it
conducts an internal investigation to determine if any policy or
procedures were violated.
A new approach by federal prosecutors
Kirk's case is the latest showing the Trump administration's plan to
take a lighter hand in the federal government's traditional role in
prosecuting police misconduct. Trump's April executive order on
policing promised the “unleashing” of law enforcement and support
for their legal defense.
The Justice Department announced in May it was canceling proposed
consent decrees reached with Minneapolis and Louisville to implement
policing reforms in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and
Breonna Taylor. The department also announced it would retract its
findings in six other sweeping investigations into police
departments that the Biden administration had accused of civil
rights violations.
Trump-appointed federal judges have also played a hand in dismissing
cases against police officers, including murder charges against a
former Atlanta police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man
hiding in a closet in 2019.
Experts say the reliance on the federal government to perform this
policing oversight comes from the close relationship between local
prosecutors and police officers, who regularly work together to
investigate crimes.
“We are often looking at the federal government to serve as a check
and balance for local law enforcement officials who are accused of
really egregious activity toward the public,” said Devin Hart, a
spokesperson for the National Police Accountability Project.
All four members of the original prosecutors withdrew from the case
after the new plea deal was presented, and at least one resigned
from the office, according to court filings. Two others took the
buyout offered to federal employees, spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy
confirmed.
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