JUSTICE SERVED IN LA MESA POLICE ABUSE CASE

The cellphone era has shown with undeniable clarity that decades of Black Americans’ complaints about police brutality and bad behavior are justified. But the political clout of police unions and 20th-century attitudes excusing officers’ violence as something the people on the other end of it had coming still often prevent justice from being done.

Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be the case in

La Mesa. The city revealed Wednesday that police

Officer Matthew Dages, who is White, had been fired on Aug. 7 over his abusive treatment of Amaurie

Johnson, who is Black, on May 27. Dages accused

Johnson of assault, but videos of his arrest showed him grabbing and shoving Johnson with no apparent justification. La Mesa disclosed the firing this week after Dages lost his appeal to a city board.

Police Chief Walt Vasquez, who fired Dages, retired soon afterward.

That video went viral just two days after another that showed a White Minneapolis police officer killing George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck. La Mesa saw the most violent local protests against police — with two banks being burned and several stores looted overnight May 30-31.

In July, Johnson filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Dages, several other unnamed officers and the city of La Mesa. It alleges city police have used force more than 140 times in dealing with suspects since 2016, with only two of the cases subsequently investigated. The lawsuit could provide muchneeded insight into whether Dages was a rogue cop or part of a larger pattern among La Mesa officers.