The sheriff’s horror show is on ‘repeat’

If Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s term in office were a horror movie, this week you’d be shouting at the screen, “No! No! Don’t go back into that scuzzy basement again!”

Yet, like an unwitting filmic protagonist, the public keeps being forced to walk down the staircase into the dark, over and over, where Los Angeles County’s top law enforcement official awaits, a one-man outrage against liberty, collegial relationships with his elected peers, proper law enforcement ethics and values and the privacy and dignity of those he is sworn to serve.

Angelenos, the county Board of Supervisors and the inspector general’s office created as a watchdog on the Sheriff’s Department continue to be appalled by whatever is the latest insult to us all perpetuated by Villanueva.

But the fact that he puts his outrageous behavior on “repeat” should not inure us all to the dangers the sheriff poses. Because the revelation last week that Villanueva has created what even senior colleagues consider a “secret police” force within the department, charged with spying on citizens who have criticized either the sheriff or the department, is not a matter we can afford to laugh off. It stinks of the worst kind of authoritarian instincts a top cop can exercise, and it needs to be stopped.

As Alene Tchekmedyian reports in the Los Angeles Times, “nine men and women make up a littleknown team of investigators formed by Sheriff Alex Villanueva and other top sheriff’s officials ... The unit, named the Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail, has pursued a longrunning investigation into one of Villanueva’s most vocal critics, L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman, and others despite sheriff’s officials being told by the FBI and state law enforcement officials that it appeared no crimes had been committed.”

Sean Kennedy, a law school professor who sits on the Civilian Oversight Committee that also oversees the sheriff, says in a 10-page memo that it’s the sheriff himself who needs to be investigated, and he’s entirely correct.

When the full commission subpoenaed Villanueva to appear before them last week, he claimed to be “too busy” to show. This sheriff once again claims to be above the law. He can’t be removed from office soon enough.