When Justice Fails: CA Man Found Not Guilty Despite Video Showing Him Beating and Shooting at Female Officer

When the jury declared Ari Young, a Californian man who brutalized a sheriff’s deputy and fired at her with her own weapon in 2019, not guilty of attempted murder and other charges, it sent shockwaves through the law enforcement community.

The victim, former Deputy Meagan McCarthy, warned that this verdict could establish a grim precedent for officers in the line of duty.

The harrowing ordeal began when a distressing 911 call from a terrified mother rang out, begging for assistance against her own son. Deputy McCarthy, being the closest officer at hand, hastened to the scene. On arrival, she was greeted by a man with balled fists striding towards her. His mother, knife in hand, was still on the 911 call behind him.

McCarthy gave a chilling account to Fox News Digital

“The woman on the other end says to dispatch, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God! Get my son out of here.’ That prompts a priority 1 response, which means somebody needs to get there right now,” McCarthy said.

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Upon reaching the house, McCarthy was the first to encounter the suspect, Ari Young, who looked “very angry,” she remembered.

“Based on my training and experience, it was easy to infer that something was going on,” McCarthy recalled of her initial arrival.

“People don’t just arm themselves against their son with a knife for no reason, and the fact that she had already made these statements to dispatch was just awful,” McCarthy said, reflecting on the disturbing scene.

She further recalled Young’s threatening words just thirteen seconds into their encounter, “I will headbutt the f— out of you,” that signaled his non-compliant intentions.

The entire incident was caught on a neighbor’s cellphone. The video shows Young savagely battering her, knocking her to the ground, taking her gun, and shooting in her direction. This resulted in McCarthy suffering injuries including a broken thumb and a black eye.

The video shows that Young punched McCarthy repeatedly. A struggle for her gun ensured in which he obtained it and fired multiple shots. McCarthy said that the only reason she survived was because the gun jammed when he pulled the trigger aimed directly at her face.

Backup arrived and took Young into custody after returning fire. Despite being shot, Young survived and ultimately walked free post his acquittal on the attempted murder charge.

Young’s defense attorney, Raj Malin, claimed that McCarthy had no lawful grounds for her actions, thereby labeling Young’s violent actions as self-defense.

“The issue was, was the initial detention of Mr. Young legal?” he asked. “If it’s not, then he’s not guilty. … He could punch her 100 times, and it wouldn’t matter.”

To the shock of many, the California jury acquitted Young of attempted murder and assault on a peace officer. Instead, they found him guilty of the lesser charge of negligent discharge of a firearm and failed to reach a verdict on several other allegations, including resisting arrest.

McCarthy rebuked this defense: “His whole thing was, I didn’t do my job right. I had no right to detain him. I had no right to search him. But that’s exactly what we are trained to do. That’s exactly what peace officer standards in training from the state of California says to do.”

California State Assemblyman and former prosecutor Bill Essayli, R-Riverside, expressed concern over a potential anti-police bias among the jury, stating, “[Malin] argued that she didn’t have a lawful authority to detain him, and therefore, he’s free to defend himself and do whatever he wants to get away from her, including beating her up and shooting at her.”

“That’s not correct. That’s not the law. And I don’t think the judge should have allowed that argument to be presented in that manner,” Essayli continued.

Following the verdicts, the county sheriff voiced her frustration at the absence of “meaningful consequences”.

“The video speaks for itself, and more importantly it demonstrates the increasing violence the public and our deputies experience,” San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Shannon Dicus said.

“I share in the frustration at the lack of accountability for these brazen and violent crimes, crimes perpetrated by a criminal who created a situation where law enforcement help was requested, a criminal who repeatedly and brutally attacked, disarmed, and tried to murder a deputy sheriff,” she continued.

Sadly, McCarthy, a mother of two young girls, was forced into retirement from a job she loved due to the post traumatic stress inflicted by this event.

“I loved my job,” McCarthy said. “I genuinely woke up every day excited to do what I was supposed to do and what I swore to do. And the fact that that was taken from me without me wanting it, makes me upset.”

But what does this outcome mean for other officers who might find themselves in similar circumstances? Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and the spokesperson for the National Police Association, reminded us of the roots of this incident.

“This started from a 911 call from a distraught mother who was so afraid of her adult son that she had a knife in her hand when the police officer got there,” Branter Smith said. “He could’ve easily went and killed his mother, maybe that’s what he was trying to do when he fired the weapon.”

“But this isn’t just about the officer, either. What about the original caller — the mother?” she asked.

She praised McCarthy for her courageous decision to respond immediately, despite the imminent danger. “Instead she immediately goes to help this woman at great peril to herself,” Brantner Smith continued. “She should be commended — not treated as some kind of second-class citizen by the jury.”

However, she warned that this treatment of McCarthy could set a regrettable precedent. The verdict might cause other officers to hesitate in moments of crisis in the future — which could be fatal for law enforcement and for the citizens they’re pledged to protect.

“She not only gets beat up, stripped of her firearm and nearly gets killed — she loses her career,” Brantner Smith lamented. “This is how she pays her mortgage, takes care of her family.”

The verdict raises troubling questions about our justice system and how it impacts those who risk their lives to protect us. Has the ‘defund the police’ movement infiltrated our culture to the degree that juries are bias against law enforcement? How can we expect them to protect us when we don’t protect them in these circumstances?