The Press Enterprise – by John Asbury
A Riverside jury is expected to begin deliberations Wednesday over whether a former Beaumont police officer was using excessive force or doing his job when he permanently blinded a woman with a high-powered pepper spray gun.
Enoch Clark, 38, is on trial on four felony counts of assault by a police officer and causing great bodily injury.
Clark attempted to arrest Monique Hernandez, 34, Feb. 21, 2012, on suspicion of drunken driving as she was pulling away from her Beaumont home. After she resisted Clark’s attempts to handcuff her, Clark used his department-issued JPX gunpowder-propelled pepper spray weapon and fired it less than a foot away from her face.
The blast of pepper spray gel sliced her right eye in half, fractured her right orbital bone and severed the optic nerve in her left eye.
“Every single day, she goes to bed at night, dreaming of a time when she used to be able to see,” Deputy District Attorney Michael Carney said. “When Monique Hernandez wakes up, the world is still dark because her sight was violently taken from here. Her eyeballs were literally blown into pieces, and the person who did this was a police officer.”
Carney on Tuesday during closing arguments showed the jury a police dashcam video in which Hernandez was seen with her hands behind her back while Clark asked about her blood alcohol concentration. Clark told her to stop resisting or he would “JPX” her. Hernandez told Clark she wasn’t resisting.
As Clark attempted to handcuff Hernandez, the video shows Clark shining a laser toward her face and firing a double-barrel charge of pepper spray.
Hernandez’s family audibly gasped in the courtroom. Hernandez sat in the second row of the courtroom and had to be escorted in and out of court.
Clark no longer works for the city of Beaumont or the Police Department. Hernandez has filed a lawsuit for damages against Clark and the Police Department. That lawsuit, being heard in Los Angeles, is separate from the criminal trial.
The Beaumont Police Department was the only Inland department that issued the JPX guns, Clark’s attorney Steve Sanchez said. He said the department did not properly train Clark or other officers how to use the less-than-lethal weapons and argued that Clark was making a split-second decision.
Though police officers were told not to fire the guns less than 5 feet away, Sanchez said they didn’t know how the guns worked.
The Beaumont Police Department has said it ceased use of the JPX guns after the incident.
Sanchez argued Tuesday that Hernandez’s testimony during the trial was rehearsed as the family prepared for a lawsuit.
“Most jurors can’t convict cops because police have the right to use force. It’s part of their job,” Sanchez said. “No one in this courtroom is happy Monique Hernandez is blind. But even when police are doing their job the right way, injuries happen.”
Yes, department issued, gasoline powered, with nuclear fail-safe pepper spray to stop King-Kong or Godzilla, this woman is lucky to be alive and that chicken-shit piece of shit cop should have to endure a blast to the face himself.
There you go, Millard – you’re finally getting the hang of anti-lefthanded sarcasm; sneaking in that little reference to the “nuclear fail-safe” spray option.
Ah, just spray his eyes with the same stuff, castrate him, fire him (no pension or benefits) and let him go.