{"id":91252,"date":"2025-07-25T11:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T11:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/91252\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T11:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T11:32:11","slug":"l-a-county-sheriff-watchdog-clash-over-deputy-killing-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/91252\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. County sheriff, watchdog clash over deputy killing investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was just past 12:30 a.m. on June 9 when Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s deputies responded to a burglary in progress at a home in Lynwood. <\/p>\n

Upon arrival, according to the department\u2019s incident summary<\/a>, they saw Federico Rodriguez, 45, through a window, holding what appeared to be a pair of scissors.<\/p>\n

Hearing screams inside, deputies forced a door open and entered the home, where they found Rodriguez repeatedly stabbing a woman. Sgt. Marcos Esquivel immediately drew his handgun, footage from his body-worn camera showed, and fired multiple shots that killed Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

The incident was the fifth of six fatal shootings by deputies that the sheriff\u2019s department has reported<\/a> so far this year. <\/p>\n

The woman Rodriguez was stabbing survived. But despite the apparently life-saving actions of the deputies, two days later the case became a point of controversy in a broader dispute between the department and L.A. County\u2019s Office of Inspector General, which investigates misconduct and the use of deadly force by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

The inspector general\u2019s office sent a letter<\/a> on June 11 to the County Board of Supervisors raising concerns that officials have been blocked from scenes of shootings by deputies and deaths in county jails. <\/p>\n

Inspector General Max Huntsman said his office interprets the state law that led to its creation over a decade ago as giving him and his staff the authority to conduct meaningful on-site investigations, with state legislation approved in 2020 strengthening that power.<\/p>\n

\"Inspector <\/p>\n

Inspector General Max Huntsman listens to testimony in the Robinson Courtroom at Loyola Law School in 2024.<\/p>\n

(Irfan Khan \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Huntsman said allowing his staff to tour scenes of shootings and receive information directly from homicide detectives and other sheriff\u2019s department personnel while the dead bodies have yet to be removed is essential for proper oversight.<\/p>\n

But the sheriff\u2019s department has repeatedly denied or limited access, Huntsman said. The June 11 letter announced the \u201cindefinite suspension of Office of Inspector General regular rollouts to deputy-involved shootings and in-custody deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huntsman said the decision to halt the rollouts was a response to a persistent lack of transparency by the sheriff\u2019s department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of going there is to conduct an independent investigation. If all we\u2019re doing is standing around being fed what they want us to know, that is not an independent investigation,\u201d he told The Times. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to pretend to be doing it when we only get to peek under the curtain.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Civilian Oversight Commission meeting on July 17, Sheriff Robert Luna said his department \u201cwill now have a process in place\u201d to allow officials responding to shooting scenes to contact an assistant sheriff to ensure \u201ca little more oversight\u201d over the process.<\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

An interior view of the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Luna called Huntsman\u2019s June 11 letter \u201calarming,\u201d but disputed how many times officials had been turned away, saying he was only aware of it happening \u201conce \u2014 at least in the last five years.\u201d <\/p>\n

Commissioner Jamon Hicks inquired further, asking whether the department could be incorrect about the number of times access has been restricted or denied, given that the inspector general\u2019s office alleges it has been a recurring issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be, and I\u2019d love to see the information,\u201d Luna said. \u201cI\u2019ve been provided none of that to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huntsman told The Times that officials from his office were \u201cprohibited from entering\u201d Rodriguez\u2019s home on July 9, as were members of the district attorney\u2019s office and the sheriff\u2019s department\u2019s Internal Affairs Bureau. It was at least the seventh time the sheriff\u2019s department had improperly limited access since 2020, he said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the sheriff\u2019s department said the \u201cclaim that the OIG was denied access on June 9 at a [deputy-involved shooting] scene in Lynwood is inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn OIG representative was on scene and was given the same briefing, along with the concerned Division Chief, Internal Affairs Bureau, Civil Litigation Bureau, Training Bureau, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney\u2019s Office,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

An exterior view of the hiring banner outside the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The statement went on to say that the department is \u201conly aware of one incident on February 27, 2025,\u201d in which the OIG was denied access to a deputy-involved shooting scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Department remains firmly committed to transparency in law enforcement and continues to work closely and cooperatively with all oversight bodies,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

During the July 17 meeting, Dara Williams, chief deputy of the Office of Inspector General, said the office\u2019s personnel often arrive at shooting scenes hours after deputies have pulled the trigger because of the logistical challenges of traveling across the county. Sheriff\u2019s department homicide detectives typically present preliminary findings and offer tours of the scenes. <\/p>\n

But on several occasions, the watchdogs have been denied access entirely, leaving them to rely solely on whatever information the sheriff\u2019s department chooses to release, Williams said.<\/p>\n

Hans Johnson, the Civil Oversight Commission\u2019s newly elected chair, said investigators can\u2019t do their jobs properly without being able to scrutinize homicide scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe count on you, in part, as eyes and ears in the community and in these high-value and very troubling cases of fatalities and deaths,\u201d he said at the July 17 meeting.<\/p>\n

Williams said the the sheriff\u2019s department has also been \u201cpainfully slow\u201d responding to requests for additional information and records following homicides by deputies. She said that in one particularly egregious example, \u201cwe served a subpoena in October of last year and we are still waiting for documents and answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to Huntsman\u2019s letter on June 16, Luna wrote to the Board of Supervisors that the department\u2019s Office of Constitutional Policing \u201chas assisted the OIG by providing Department information to 49 of 53 instances\u201d since January. \u201cSuffice it to say,\u201d he added later in the letter, \u201crobust communications take place between the OIG and the Department. Any assertion to the contrary is false.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luna said sometimes access could be restricted to preserve evidence, but Williams said she does not \u201cthink it\u2019s fair to say that we were excluded\u201d for that reason. <\/p>\n

Williams told the commission she was not allowed to tour a scene earlier this year that Huntsman later told The Times was a Feb. 27 incident in Rosemead. <\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s department\u2019s incident summary<\/a> stated that Deputy Gregory Chico shot Susan Lu, 56, after she refused commands to drop a meat cleaver and raised the blade \u201ctoward deputies.\u201d Lu was taken to a hospital and declared dead later that day.<\/p>\n

In his June 16 letter, Luna wrote that \u201cthe OIG, Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), other Department units, and executives were denied access … due to concerns regarding evidence preservation, given the confined area and complexity of the scene layout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams told the commission \u201cthere was a narrow hallway but the actual incident took place in a bedroom, so I don\u2019t know why we couldn\u2019t have walked down that narrow hallway to just view into the bedroom\u201d where the homicide took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line,\u201d she added later, \u201cis we don\u2019t want to mislead the public to give them the idea that this is actually effective oversight because, once again, we\u2019re just getting the information from the department.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was just past 12:30 a.m. on June 9 when Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s deputies responded to a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":91253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[717,1582,276,60609,3040,7726,60608,12644,60611,4155,2961,19945,224,5337,54116,1812,60610,6566,9260,12498],"class_list":{"0":"post-91252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-dara-williams","12":"tag-department","13":"tag-deputy","14":"tag-huntsman","15":"tag-information","16":"tag-inspector-general","17":"tag-june","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-letter","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-luna","23":"tag-office","24":"tag-oig","25":"tag-place","26":"tag-scene","27":"tag-sheriff"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114913656428910034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}