Supes OK review of deputies’ videos
Sheriff vehemently objects to watchdog’s access to the database
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved an effort to open the Sheriff’s Department database to the county’s Office of Inspector General and other agencies despite angry pushback from Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who called the county’s watchdog “corrupt” and the effort “utter nonsense.”
For months, Inspector General Max Huntsman has been calling on the department to allow his office access to computer records that include body-worn camera video for the purpose of reviewing Sheriff’s Department conduct and oversight.
The board — by a vote of 4-0 with Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstaining — approved a motion at Tuesday’s meeting that called for access to the records, prompted by “continued complaints and concerns raised by
families whose loved ones were killed by L.A. County Sheriff’s Department deputies.”
The measure calls for a report within 60 days on the feasibility of its efforts.
Community members say such actions by deputies have ranged from mocking statements to incidents of harassment.
In May, the board approved an Office of Inspector General report looking into complaints, but officials said there were “barriers to the OIG’s ability to comply with the board’s directive.”
Prompted by those hurdles, the board pushed harder Tuesday to require the Sheriff’s Department to allow direct access by the office to the Performance Recording and Monitoring System database and bodyworn camera videos.
The mission, according to a statement from the office, is to “fulfill its obligations as directed by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors per the May 4, 2021 motion.”
“The board needs to continue to stand up for our impacted residents by moving forward on these and other recommendations,” the motion said.
It was introduced by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Holly Mitchell.
The board’s action would allow access to the cloudbased storage system for body-worn camera video stored by evidence.com to the inspector general, the Public Defender’s Office, Alternate Public Defender, the District Attorney’s Office and other county justice departments as part of a contract between the county’s Internal Services Department and private vendor Axon Enterprises Inc.
It also would, if necessary, allow additional licenses to be issued to evidence.com, a privately owned repository for evidence from law-enforcement investigations, so it can be shared by other county justice departments.
But Tuesday, Villanueva cautioned that if approved, the action would be tied up in the courts, saying that the board is up against 50 years of case law that does not give the county the authority to alter such contracts.
Villanueva called the effort “legislative extortion,” adding that the majority of deputy-involved shootings involved situations in which the deputy’s life was in danger. He said in such cases, “victims” of such shootings are not victims, they are suspects.
But that brought a sharp retort from Stephanie Luna, an aunt of 21-yearold Anthony Vargas, who was shot by deputies in 2018. According to LASD reports, two deputies investigating reports of an armed robbery shot Vargas 13 times in August of 2018 after a struggle during which Vargas pulled a gun from his waistband. A district attorney’s investigation cleared the deputies, determining they acted in defense of themselves and others in the area. Vargas’ family subsequently filed a wrongful-death lawsuit.
“My nephew is not a suspect. He is a victim,” Luna said Tuesday, citing what she called Villanueva’s “blatant disregard” for the rights of her nephew and a “systematic problem” within the department.
“They are victims because they were killed,” an indignant Mitchell said. “That’s what constitutes the term victim.
“To make the global statement that they were suspect and therefore deserve than less than humane treatment by officers who took an oath to protect and serve all equally, I found deeply offensive.”
Luna and others have alleged they have faced harassment by deputies. A May report by the National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles detailed allegations such LASD patrol cars driving “slowly past family members’ homes or parking outside their homes on an almost daily basis, a phenomenon that only arose after Anthony’s death,” according to the report.
The report said harassment of families of people killed by deputies has discouraged many from speaking out about such shootings.
In cases noted in the report, the District Attorney’s Office concluded that the deputies acted lawfully during shootings. In those cases, however, families had filed lawsuits against the individual deputies, the county and the Sheriff’s Department.
Barger, too, slammed Villanueva’s words as “totally inappropriate” and “unfortunate.”
But Barger also raised questions that underpinned her vote to abstain.
County Counsel Rodrigo A. Castro-Silva said the OIG has full access to Sheriff’s Department records, but that the office is limited by codes that restrain him from “obstructing” the sheriff’s investigations. He noted there is state law that limits access to some information, so the board’s motion can only go so far as permitted by law.
Castro-Silva cited a state law that authorizes the chair of the a county oversight board and the inspector general to issue a subpoena to investigate a matter within their jurisdiction.
Barger wasn’t quite ready to say yes and wanted more time to weigh the item.
Tension over oversight of the Sheriff’s Department has continued to intensify in recent months. .
In a blunt, sweeping letter released Friday, June 18, Huntsman demanded the release of a litany of oversight information that he said the department has “significantly and intentionally impeded.”
The demands, itemized in the 13-page letter to Villanueva dated June 15, chronicle what Huntsman alleged were more than two dozen instances over two years of the department’s defiance. They range from refusal to comply with Huntsman’s document and information requests to the blocking of access to body-worn camera footage.