LAPD officer charged with felony DUI
Off-duty lieutenant reportedly had a blood-alcohol level of 0.20% after crash.
A Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant who had posted an anti-drunkdriving message online was charged with felony DUI on Wednesday in connection with an off-duty crash on the 605 Freeway in Santa Fe Springs that injured at least one person over the weekend.
Matthew Ensley was arrested at the scene late Sunday by the California Highway Patrol on suspicion of felony driving under the influence. His blood-alcohol level was 0.20%, more than twice the legal limit, according to a report by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ensley was relieved of duty after his arrest.
An LAPD spokesperson confirmed that Ensley had been arrested and that his most recent assignment was to the transit division, but declined to comment further.
Ensley remained in custody until Wednesday, when he made his initial L.A. County Superior Court appearance in Bellflower. Ensley, who wore a black puffer jacket, said little during the brief hearing — other than to acknowledge that he understood when District Court Judge Warren Kato discussed his next court date.
Ensley’s attorney, Bill Seki, asked Kato to lower his client’s $100,000 bail, pointing to the officer’s roughly 20 years of public service and “community ties.”
“Mr. Ensley has never been involved in anything like this before,” Seki said.
But Kato declined to set the bail amount any lower. Jail records show Ensley was released on bond Wednesday afternoon.
“The court is obviously always concerned with public safety. Obviously I understand that he is a respected member of the community,” the judge said.
But he told Seki he couldn’t make exceptions just because of Ensley’s status as an officer.
Seki declined to comment further after the hearing, saying he hadn’t had a chance to fully review the police report.
The CHP report alleges that Ensley was driving drunk on the northbound 605 in Santa Fe Springs, just south of Spring Avenue, when he rear-ended another vehicle. The report listed two injuries — with one person complaining of head pain and another suffering a broken arm — but didn’t specify whether the injured were all occupants of the vehicle that Ensley struck, according to CHP Officer Bob Whittenberg.
The incident occurred around 10:25 p.m.
After joining the LAPD in 2004, Ensley was seen as a fast riser, earning a reputation as a hardworking cop on anti-gang assignments in the Hollenbeck Division.
In 2009, Ensley and another officer opened fire on an armed man while on patrol in the Ramona Gardens housing development, injuring the suspect.
More recently, he was mentioned in an LAPD detective’s lawsuit claiming that fellow members of the force’s amateur football team, the Centurions, had sexually assaulted himself and others as part of a longstanding hazing ritual. Ensley was named as being present during a locker room hazing incident, but was not accused of participating. He and his attorney have not responded to the allegations.
Alcohol abuse is a persistent issue in the LAPD, with many officers investigated each year for drunk driving or other alcohol-related incidents.
Over the years, city officers have been accused of a variety of offenses while drunk, ranging from shooting people and getting into crashes to yelling racial slurs at bouncers.
The problem, and the department’s supposedly lenient handling of such cases, has received scrutiny in the past by the Police Commission. The civilian oversight body voted to tighten the department’s alcohol policy, lowering the acceptable blood-alcohol level for an armed off-duty officer to 0.04% in some situations.
The commission revisited the issue of off-duty drinking in response to a 2021 Times report that indicated the department had failed to develop clear policies despite multiple cases in recent years in which officers who were off the clock and armed allegedly caused trouble, broke laws and shot people after drinking.
An account on the social media site X associated with Ensley appears to have been taken down after his arrest. In December, according to a screenshot, the account reposted a message from another user about the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving joining with police and local leaders to “drive down fatalities from DUI drivers” during the holiday season.