FBI probes L.A. County deputy incidents in Palmdale, Lancaster
Body camera video captured sheriff’s deputies in Lancaster using force in response to a reported robbery on June 24. An incident in Palmdale also sparked criticism in recent weeks, and the FBI is looking into both cases.
The FBI has opened two criminal investigations into violent incidents involving Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Palmdale and Lancaster, both of which sparked criticism after video footage came to light in recent weeks.
According to an email obtained by The Times, federal authorities have already visited the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department headquarters to take documents related to their probes. Department officials on Friday confirmed the visit and said they planned to cooperate with investigators.
One of the investigations will focus on a case involving a Palmdale deputy who punched a woman in the face last year while she was holding her baby.
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The other will center on a case involving a Lancaster deputy who threw a woman to the ground by her neck last month in a WinCo Foods parking lot after she started recording an arrest with her cellphone.
In addition to the federal investigations, the email says, the California Department of Justice has agreed to review the case of 18-year-old Andres Guardado, who was shot in the back three years ago by a sheriff’s deputy in Gardena.
The state Department of Justice did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. An FBI spokesperson said federal authorities were in contact with the Sheriff’s Department regarding the Palmdale case, but would not confirm that agents were conducting a criminal investigation into either incident.
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The internal county email obtained by The Times said that “federal criminal investigations have been opened concerning the recent incidents” in Palmdale and Lancaster.
“The FBI has already been to headquarters to obtain department documents on both incidents,” the email said, adding that the U.S. Justice Department “will not be publicly commenting on the investigations.”
The email went on to say that officials believed word of the investigations “will likely leak soon” since the FBI had visited the department’s headquarters, but that Sheriff Robert Luna would not yet be commenting publicly.
“Additionally, the California Attorney General’s office accepted the Andres Guardado case,” the email continued, saying the state Department of Justice “will not be confirming that they are reviewing the case and has advised the department to keep this matter confidential and not to comment or confirm that [the agency] accepted the case.”
The Palmdale incident under federal scrutiny took place in July 2022, but did not become public until this week, when Luna called a news conference to release body camera footage and announce that the deputy involved had been relieved of duty.
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The agonizing eight-minute video stemmed from a routine traffic stop after Palmdale deputies spotted a vehicle being driven at night without any headlights. When they pulled it over, the deputies allegedly smelled alcohol and saw four women inside, three of them with babies in their arms rather than in car seats.
The deputies began to arrest the women on suspicion of felony child endangerment, and used force on two of the women when they resisted giving up their babies.
The bulk of the video shows a tense conversation between a group of deputies and one woman who clutches her baby while sitting cross-legged on the ground. The deputies are heard saying that the woman was riding in a car driven by someone without a valid license, and that her baby was not in a car seat. After several minutes of back-and-forth, deputies pry the woman’s hands apart, and she begins screaming as the child is removed from her arms.
Nearby, another woman holding a baby begins screaming and cursing at officers. When deputies announce they plan to arrest her too, she grows irate.
“Y’all gonna have to shoot me dead to take my baby from my arms,” she says, and a struggle ensues.
As at least two deputies hold the woman by her wrists and arms, a third male deputy can be seen throwing two punches toward her head while she is still holding her baby. It is unclear in the video whether the punches connected with the woman’s head, but she howls in pain.
Tiffiny Blacknell, director of communications for the district attorney’s office, confirmed that prosecutors declined to file charges against the women in the video after the Sheriff’s Department presented a case against them. Blacknell was unsure what charges the Sheriff’s Department had asked prosecutors to consider.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Luna said that he had learned of the incident only a few days earlier, and that he “took swift action” by firing the deputy and sending the matter to the FBI and local prosecutors.
“I found the punching of the woman and the circumstances completely unacceptable,” he said.
In a Facebook post a day later, the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs publicly identified the deputy who’s seen throwing the punches as Timothy Gardner. The union posted a link to a GoFundMe account soliciting donations for Gardner, and said he was recently “advised that it was the Department’s intent to discharge him from his position of Deputy Sheriff.” The account had raised nearly $30,000 as of Friday evening.
“The disdain placed on Deputy Timothy Gardner’s name is despicable and unjust in every form,” the donation page read.
Attorney Bill Hadden, who is representing Gardner, told The Times that the eight-minute video released this week shows only a fraction of the incident, and that deputies had repeatedly tried to get the women to hand over their children. Eventually, he said, they became concerned that one of the women might injure her baby.
“The deputies were all concerned that harm was going to come because the woman said she was not going to give up the baby unless somebody shot her,” Hadden said. “So Deputy Gardner struck her, and she dropped the baby.”
Afterward, Hadden said, several levels of internal review cleared Gardner of wrongdoing.
Under state law, police officers must generally face discipline within one year of their department learning about alleged misconduct. Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the incident.
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The other incident under FBI scrutiny took place on June 24, when deputies responded to 911 calls reporting a robbery in progress at a WinCo Foods grocery store on Avenue K in Lancaster. After arriving on scene, they encountered a man and a woman who allegedly matched the descriptions of the suspects given to 911.
As the deputies handcuffed the man in the parking lot, the woman began taking video with her phone. Within seconds, one of the deputies rushes toward her and reaches for her arm, seemingly in an attempt to take the phone.
“You can’t touch me,” she screams. The deputy throws her on the ground, and video shows him arguing with her, and at one point threatening to punch her in the. He then pepper-sprays her in the face and handcuffs her.
The man who was handcuffed at the scene was ultimately cited on suspicion of resisting an officer, attempted petty theft and interfering with a business. The woman was hospitalized for the effects of the pepper spray and for abrasions to her arm. She was released but cited on suspicion of assaulting an officer, as well as battery on allegations that she had assaulted store loss prevention personnel.
At a July 6 news conference, Luna called the incident “disturbing” but declined to name the deputies involved. Both had been removed from field duty, he said, adding that the department’s internal investigation was still underway to determine whether deputies’ use of force was reasonable.
“At the end of the day, we’re short-handed at a lot of our patrol stations, if not all of them,” the sheriff said. “Out in the Antelope Valley, it’s one of the busiest stations we have in the entire county.”
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The case now under review by the California Department of Justice dates back to June 2020, when then-deputy Miguel Vega tried to arrest Guardado on suspicion of illegal possession of a firearm.
The young man initially ran from Vega and his partner, Chris Hernandez, in a brief foot chase, then complied with Vega’s orders to surrender and drop his weapon, according to a district attorney’s office memo.
After Guardado got on the ground, Vega claimed, the young man reached for the gun. Vega then shot Guardado five times in the back, killing him.
The case sparked widespread protests and was one of several fatal Sheriff’s Department shootings that has prompted outrage in L.A. County in recent years. Ultimately, Guardado’s family filed suit, and last year the county settled for $8 million.
The district attorney’s office decided earlier this year that there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute Vega, due in large part to a lack of available surveillance video and the fact that Vega was the sole witness to the shooting.
The email reviewed by The Times did not detail what the California Department of Justice planned to do with the Guardado case, and a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The California Constitution grants the office the power to review cases where the “law is not being adequately enforced” by a local or county agency, and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has used that power to prosecute police officers once before.
In 2021, Bonta brought manslaughter charges against former LAPD Officer Salvador Sanchez, who shot and killed a developmentally disabled man in a Costco in Corona in 2019. Local prosecutors had previously declined to pursue charges in the case.
Source: Los Angeles Times
