After an investigation into the incident, Fowell was found guilty of using excessive force and was fired. He appealed his termination and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office later confirmed that an arbitrator, an independent judge within their department, found that firing him wasn’t warranted.

“The sheriff’s office was entitled to take Deputy Fowell out of the public spotlight for a while,” Fowell’s attorney, William Creger told the Sacramento Bee. “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.”

Now, people in the Rancho Cordova community are outraged by the decision. Betty Williams, president of the local NAACP, said that she’s “pissed” with the department, according to the Atlanta Black Star.

“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?” she said, according to Atlanta Black Star. “That is absolutely a slap in the face.”

Brian Fowell

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