By Bill Carey
Police1 Staff
PHOENIX — A Phoenix police officer has been released from the hospital after a brutal attack and the union has issued a statement that criticizes the department’s reporting of the incident.
On April 30, a Phoenix officer was flagged down by a woman during a domestic dispute. 24-year-old Rudy Gomez assaulted the officer, causing multiple facial fractures, ABC 15 reported. The officer was rushed to a hospital for surgery and Gomez was arrested on felony charges for assaulting an officer.
Interim police chief Michael Sullivan issued a statement about the incident that was posted to social media saying, “On Sunday night a Phoenix police patrol officer was violently assaulted by a domestic violence suspect and sustained significant facial injuries requiring hospitalization and surgery.”
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=624185869750155&set=pb.100064762416668.-2207520000.
On Wednesday a social media post stated that the officer had been released from the hospital. The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA) released a statement of its own.
“When our officer attempted to take Gomez into custody, the suspect punched our officer in the face, rendering him unconscious. Gomez continued his attack, brutally punching the officer in the face an estimated dozen times and then stomping on the officer’s face.”
The PLEA post went on to criticize Chief Sullivan’s posts.
“Because of the vanilla media release by the police department, media reports have said our officer was hospitalized with serious but non-fatal injuries, but that doesn’t begin to convey the brutality of the attack. The officer’s injuries are horrific; two broken eye orbital bones, lacerations on the head and above the eye, and a broken nose. He was almost unrecognizable only minutes after the assault. It’s nothing short of miraculous that he survived.”
The PLA post stated that a Maricopa County judge had set bond for Gomez at $60,000, “despite the seven charges that include two Class 2 felonies for aggravated assault on a police officer, a prior aggravated assault, and the $100,000 cash bond requested by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.”
PLEA president Darrell Kriplean told ABC 15 that the violent and vicious attack initially received little to no news coverage due to “the way the department put it out.” ABC 15 stated that Chief Sullivan emailed members of the department expressing his displeasure about the low bond.