LOS ANGELES – Just as former L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has announced his intentions to run for his old position, the current sheriff continues to avoid disclosing documents to the oversight commission tasked with monitoring the department.
Sheriff Robert Luna continues to defy subpoenas from the nine-member Civilian Oversight Commission, but oddly, there is little media and community outcry that Villanueva faced during his term.
Luna campaigned on a platform of restoring public trust and increasing transparency 1 and in his first press conference after being elected, he vowed to "repair relations" with the oversight commission.
I'm going in with open arms, ears open, willing to learn, but it's going to be a two-way street," Luna said. "I expect there to be a good working relationship, but like any other relationship there's a give-and-take on both sides.
Since then, two of the initial members of the oversight commission have left - Sean Kennedy resigned 2 and Robert Bonner was "forced out" 3 after Luna defied subpoenas requesting information related to their work.
The Los Angeles Times continues to report on Luna hiding behind the veil of the county counsel to prevent disclosure of records related to police shootings, with the latest fallout covered in the article. Access denied: L.A. County sheriff, watchdog clash over deputy shooting investigations 4 .
The Times article cites a letter 5 Fired off from the department's inspector general, Max Huntsman, who says Luna is not allowing them access to crime scenes related to deputy-involved shootings or to in-custody deaths in the jails.
While the Sheriffs Department has implemented policies for cooperation with the Office of Inspector General, in practice the Department does not fully cooperate. Requests from the Office of Inspector General are regularly routed to the Office of Constitutional Policing for a decision on what information will be provided to us and the timeframe in which it will be provided. There are often lengthy delays in providing information, including failures to provide all the requested information. This effectively limits our access to information by impeding the process and circumvents state law and the Department's own policy.
In short, Huntsman is basically saying Luna said everything he could to the public to remove Villanueva, but is continuing in the same pattern that he inferred he wouldn't do.
Luna has also gone so far as to sue the oversight commission 6 To prevent turning over misconduct records, which further erodes public trust and quite frankly isn't promoting the transparency he campaigned on.
One of the first acts Luna implemented as sheriff was to create an Office of Constitutional Policing to eradicate 'deputy gangs' 7 and appointed Eileen Decker as the Director of the new department.
Decker vowed to be committed to ensuring the department has "appropriate policies, practices, and training in place to follow them."
This department faces some real challenges like multiple consent decrees, court judgments, settlement agreements, the existence of deputy gangs, and lawsuits that cost our taxpayers millions in settlements and judgments," said Luna. "I will have zero tolerance for this type of conduct.
Previous Sheriffs had constitutional policing advisors as well, and Luna was asked how he would describe the difference between what was in place before versus what he has created.
"The big difference is that we're going to have more than just two attorneys, we are going to have an entire team and with the position, Eileen will be holding is a Chief level position in the department and she will be sitting in the room in a lot of our meetings and she'll have so much say in how we move forward as a command staff," said Luna.
So is it Decker or Luna or a combination of the two that has determined he doesn't need to comply with the inspector general's office and more importantly, why aren't the Board of Supervisors up in arms about it like they were with Villanueva?
*This is neither a paid nor a sponsored post
The post L.A. County sheriff called out by inspector general for lack of transparency appeared first on 2UrbanGirls .
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