LA MESA
Amaurie Johnson does not want to think about how differently things could have turned out if a friend had not recorded his arrest on video last May 27.
Johnson, who is Black, was waiting for his friends at a La Mesa transit center when Officer Matthew Dages, who is White, approached him and accused him of illegally smoking. Johnson was not smoking, and he complied with Dages, giving him his name and date of birth, though he also questioned and protested against what he viewed as a discriminatory stop.
During the encounter, the friends Johnson had been waiting for pulled up in a car, and a passenger began recording on a cellphone. The video showed Dages grabbing and shoving Johnson as he detained and later arrested the San Diego man on suspicion of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.
Now retired La Mesa police Chief Walt Vasquez sent former Officer Matthew Dages a termination letter on Aug. 7.
According to the records, Dages didn’t ask another officer to accompany him or activate his body-worn camera before he walked up to Johnson, who was waiting for friends and standing against a parking garage wall outside an apartment complex.
Investigators determined 57 seconds elapsed between the start of the encounter and the moment Dages activated his camera, which happened once the encounter turned tense.
Dages told investigators he activated his body camera “as soon as reasonably possible” a statement the investigators and the police chief rejected. They said time and safety were on Dages’ side before and when he approached Johnson.
Decades after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. s death, the fight for equality continues
and last updated 2021-01-19 13:02:14-05
SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Decades after Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. s death, his fight for equality is far from over.
His words echoed through the National Mall in 1963, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident. It s amazing over all this time we re still fighting the same fight, Yusef Miller, Co-Founder of the North County Equity and Justice Coalition said.
Dages lost his policing job over his allegedly racially motivated and excessively forceful arrest of 23-year-old Amaurie Johnson of San Diego on May 27.
According to police, Dages, who is white, contacted Johnson for allegedly smoking in public, which is prohibited in the area, then arrested him for purported assault on a peace officer and resisting arrest.
Johnson, who has filed a lawsuit against the city over the encounter, denied that he had been smoking and insisted that was just waiting to meet some people when Dages approached.
After his friends arrived, Johnson tried to walk away, at which point he was violently grabbed, forcefully jerked and aggressively pushed into a seated position by the officer, according to his court papers.