Holding LA County Sheriff’s Department Accountable for Abandoning Abuse Reforms

Less than a decade after Sheriff Paul Tanaka and numerous Sheriff’s Deputies were sentenced to prison – with former Sheriff Lee Baca currently appealing his prison sentence – for ail inmate abuse, dishonesty, and obstruction of justice.  LASD now claims deputies were unfairly fired for misconduct, and aims to reverse the reforms that followed.

The County Board of Supervisors, local press, government oversight organizations and a growing number of citizens who supported the reforms are now concerned that the Department is abandoning them with impunity.  Many previously fired deputies are being rehired.  Internal investigations of deputies alleged to have committed misconduct have been halted, and other reforms reversed.  For example, deputies’ heavy metal flashlights, often used to abuse jail inmates, were forbidden and now have returned.

Co-sponsors include The LWV-LA, the LA County LWV, the ACLU SoCal/Pasadena-Foothills Chapter, Pasadenans Organizing for Progress (POP), NDLON (National Day Laborers Organizing Network), Altadena Town Councilwoman Veronica Jones, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Greater Pasadena (IMA), Indivisible Pasadena/Altadena Chapter, Allen Edson, President, NAACP Pasadena, NBBA (Neighbors Building a Better Altadena), LA Progressive.