Robert Luna for Los Angeles County Sheriff

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department needs competent, professional leadership. It's the third-largest local police agency in the nation and is still scarred by many years of scandal and criminality within its ranks. Sheriff Alex Villanueva has prov

Villanueva was elected four years ago as a progressive reformer. In addition to having the support of the deputies union, he was even backed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Upon taking office, however, Villanueva quickly revealed that his approach to the office was fundamentally cronyist and politically cynical.

One of his first courses of action, having taken office in December 2018, was to reinstate a deputy who had been terminated amid allegations of domestic violence and stalking behavior. The deputy, Carl Mandoyan, had been a volunteer for Villanueva's campaign.

This in turn set off not only an ongoing feud between county officials rightly outraged that Villanueva would seek to reinstate such a person in a straightforward act of cronyism, but a legal battle which has continued to drag on despite a judge ruling in favor of the county's move to block the reinstatement in 2020.

Most recently, Villanueva has been accused by highranking officials in his department of trying to cover up an incident in which a deputy knelt on the head of a handcuffed jail inmate. As part of this particular case, Villanueva shamefully targeted Los Angeles Times reporter Alene Tchekmedyian, who broke the story, by featuring her image during a press conference and suggesting she was under investigation.

Though he later walked back his remarks that indicated she was under investigation, this sort of incoherent thuggishness is what people have come to expect from

Villanueva. One of Villanueva's defining tendencies over the last few years has been his foot-dragging on investigations into deputy gangs and cliques in the sheriff's department.

Enough of this.

There are several candidates running to replace Villanueva, most of whom either work for or who have worked for the sheriff's department. We believe an outsider's perspective is needed. Accordingly, we think former Long Beach police Chief Robert Luna is the best bet for those seeking a needed shift to normalcy and integrity in the leadership of the sheriff's department.

Luna has worked in law enforcement for 36 years, most of which has been spent in leadership positions.

Luna vows to focus on building positive relationships between the department and the community by focusing on and promoting crime prevention and alternatives to incarceration when it's justified while also maintaining a particular focus on habitual and violent offenders.

“As sheriff, I will coordinate with the Board of Supervisors, LAPD and L.A. County chiefs to ensure that we are coordinated and successful in our work,” he told us. “In fact, one of my first priorities is to rebuild the fractured relationship with the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.”

For a department like the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, this straightforward agenda of focusing on crime prevention and not being a demagogue like Villanueva is precisely what's needed.