Officer Sentenced For Assaulting Victim When He Thought Bodycams Weren’t Running

A former police officer was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in assaulting an arrestee during a pursuit in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, and his attempts to cover up his misconduct, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday. In 2020, Jared Desadier and other officers from the Monroe Police Department were interviewing a suspect when he attempted to run away. Eventually, he stopped running and placed himself prone on the ground with his hands behind his back. Desadier asked the other officer pursuing if his body camera was recording and, when the officer incorrectly told him it was not, ran up to the victim and kicked him in the face. The incident was caught on camera. 

“The bedrock of officer and citizen engagement is for the officer to, without exception, act professionally with a goal of deescalating tense situations,” U.S. Attorney Brandon B. Brown said in the DOJ release. Brown represents the Western District of Louisiana. “Here, this defendant instead decided to criminally escalate the situation by unnecessarily battering the victim. Prosecuting offenses such as these not only benefit society, but also law enforcement because bad police officers who cast a black eye on the profession are eradicated from the law enforcement community.”