Florida Governor Ron DeSantis highlighted law and order priorities, including protecting from fentanyl and illegal drugs, and curbing illegal immigration, with Attorney General Ashley Moody, Sheriff Grady Judd, and others in law enforcement.
Last year, Governor DeSantis signed legislation establishing the State Assistance for Fentanyl Eradication (SAFE) grant program, which provides law enforcement with the funding needed to conduct large-scale drug operations across the state, including many in Central Florida.
Florida has also enacted a suite of legislation to crack down on crime, curb illegal immigration, increase penalties for drug and human traffickers, and recruit law enforcement officers to the state.
And when two state attorneys refused to carry out the duties of their positions and enforce the law, Governor DeSantis removed them from office.
“Leadership matters,” said Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. “Law and order is maintained when leaders insist on enforcing the law. Florida has enacted legislation to combat crime, recruited police officers from all over the country, refused to allow cities to defund the police, and—when necessary—removed rogue state attorneys who refused to enforce the law.”
“Florida is a law-and-order state, and through proactive leadership and diligent law enforcement efforts we continue to prosper, break tourism records and lead in new business formations,” said Attorney General Ashley Moody. “This is due in large part to the brave men and women in law enforcement, and we will always work to ensure they are supported by Florida leadership.”
In 2023, the Governor approved $20 million in funding for Florida’s SAFE program administered by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. This state-funded grant has allowed local law enforcement agencies to effectively fight against drug trafficking and get hundreds of pounds of deadly drugs off our streets.
“I commend Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature for their support of law enforcement in Florida,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. “We are a law and order state, and proud of it. Because of this, our communities are thriving. Florida is a safe place to live, work, and play.”
Examples of Florida being a law and order state from SAFE grant success stories include:
In January 2024, the Polk County Sheriffs Office utilized SAFE to arrest 11 suspects trafficking in fentanyl and cocaine, seizing 30 pounds of cocaine and nearly 8 pounds of fentanyl.
In March 2024, Santa Rosa County and Escambia County Sheriffs’ offices, working alongside the DEA, seized 3 grams of fentanyl, marijuana, prescription pills, and several handguns.
In April 2024, FDLE operations in conjunction with Sheriffs’ Offices in Seminole County and Palm Beach County resulted in arrests of nearly 40 drug traffickers.
In April 2024, officers in the Fort Myers region successfully seized nearly 4kg of cocaine, 90g of fentanyl, 69g of MDMA, 375g of marijuana, two AR-15 weapons, and more than $60,000 in currency.
In July 2024, FDLE Pensacola, Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County Sheriff’s offices, Fort Walton Beach Police Department, FHP, and the DEA announced the arrest of 19 drug traffickers facing charges including trafficking in cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, conspiracy to distribute, and racketeering.
In August 2024, a SAFE-funded investigation dismantled a drug trafficking operation in St. Petersburg which was responsible for manufacturing hundreds of doses of fentanyl daily throughout Polk County, specifically in Lakeland.
Officers confiscated 10.7 kilos of fentanyl, along with cocaine, oxycodone, marijuana, 3 illegal firearms, and over $500,000 in cash.
“Florida is a national model in eradicating drugs from our communities and taking criminals off the street,” said Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner. “In every corner of this great state, you will find State Troopers and local law enforcement working together to interdict drugs and arrest those who profit off of it. Instead of being demonized, Governor DeSantis celebrates the dangerous work our law enforcement officers do every day, and our men and women in law enforcement deeply appreciate that.”
In total, SAFE funds have resulted in over 650 arrests and the seizure of more than 145 pounds of fentanyl, 220 pounds of cocaine, and 60,000 fentanyl pills – numbers officials say show Florida is a law and order state.
“Thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis and his leadership, Florida’s law enforcement officers have arrested hundreds of dangerous drug traffickers and taken fentanyl and other deadly drugs off our streets,” said Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass. “Florida is a national role model and stands in stark contrast to crime-plagued blue states.”
A 41-year-old man accused of decapitating his parents and killing their dog started to sing Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It” after he was shot by an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy.
Joseph Brandon Gerdvil was arrested on suspicion of killing his parents, 77-year-old Ronald Walter Gerdvil and 79-year-old Antoinette Gerdvil in their San Juan Capistrano home on July 9, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
In body camera video of the incident released Friday, a blood-soaked Gerdvil is shown with a metal object in his hand approaching a sheriff’s deputy moments before he is shot, then swearing and singing after he’s on the ground wounded.
Authorities say the series of disturbing events began with Gerdvil text messaging photos of his bloodied mother to a cousin.
That relative called 911 around 7:30 a.m. to report a possible domestic assault on their elderly relatives who live in a mobile home community in the 32000 block of Alipaz Street, authorities said. She told dispatchers her cousin suffers from mental health issues and has been violent in the past.
Another dispatcher, meanwhile, received a 911 call from a maintenance worker at the same mobile home community who reported they were being chased by a bloodied man with a fork, authorities said.
The bloodied man, later identified as Gerdvil, drove off in the maintenance worker’s golf cart in an unknown direction.
Sheriff’s deputies who arrived at the scene found a person on the ground bleeding and a gruesome scene inside Gerdvil’s parents’ home.
“There’s a head on the counter,” one of the deputies on scene told dispatchers.
Gerdvil reappeared on a bike path a short time later and then approached a Sheriff’s Department community service officer as she sat in her vehicle, according to authorities. He then threw a shovel at the officer’s vehicle and drove off in the golf cart.
Body camera footage shows what happened next: A blood-soaked Gerdvil parked the golf cart on the sidewalk and approached a deputy while carrying a metal object.
He ignored the deputy’s orders and shouted something unintelligible before the deputy fired five times and Gerdvil fell to the ground.
“F— you,” Gerdvil said as he lay on the ground wounded.
Gerdvil then rolled onto his stomach and was handcuffed.
He can be heard telling deputies “I love you” and “I’m sorry you’re gonna have to die” while facing the ground.
As deputies assessed his wounds, Gerdvil said, “Finish me off.”
“Put one in my head, please. I beg of you,” he said.
At one point as he lay on the ground bleeding, and law enforcement and first responders moved frantically around the crime scene, Gerdvil broke out into song.
“What’s love got to do with it. What’s love, but a secondhand emotion?” he sang softly, quoting the 1984 Tina Turner hit.
He then shifted to Stevie Wonder and sang, “I just called to say I love you” as the deputies gave him medical attention.
It’s unclear how many times he was hit but the unnamed deputy who shot Gerdvil later told other deputies on the scene he aimed for his chest and stomach.
Gerdvil was booked on suspicion of two counts of homicide and remains at the hospital, according to authorities.
There were no deputies injured and the shooting is under investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office. The killings are under investigation by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department homicide detail.
A woman in Northern California was killed this week in what appeared to be a dog attack, and authorities are investigating whether any of the 25 Great Danes found roaming the area may be behind the fatal mauling.
Just before 2 a.m. Thursday, a resident came across a body on Blackhawk Trail in Feather Falls, not far from Lake Oroville. He called the police, and deputies responded to the scene, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.
The woman was later identified as Davina Corbin, 56, who lived in the area. An autopsy found numerous bite marks and other injuries that pointed to a domestic dog attack, authorities said, and the evidence indicates she was out on a walk when she was mauled.
Sheriff’s detectives launched an investigation, but did not have to go far. Corbin’s body had been discovered directly in front of a home, and upon serving a search warrant, detectives found themselves in a startling situation that involved 25 Great Danes.
“Deputies and detectives spent the entire day capturing the dogs, who were running loose in the area,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday. “To date, approximately 23 dogs have been captured and turned over to animal control. Detectives are currently attempting to capture the two outstanding dogs.”
A lab analysis confirmed that Corbin’s clothing was covered with DNA that was consistent with at least one domestic dog, and authorities are in the process of doing additional testing to determine which dog, or dogs, might be guilty of the attack.
Great Danes are usually known to be gentle and friendly, despite their imposing size. Once fully grown, the dogs are taller than most people when standing on their hind legs and can weigh anywhere from 110 to 175 pounds — making them one of the largest recognized dog breeds.
According to the American Kennel Club, Great Danes were developed once upon a time by German nobles to hunt ferocious wild boars, and they later became beloved protectors of their home and loved ones.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies shot and fatally wounded a man who fired at them outside a Rancho Cucamonga shopping center, authorities said.
Deputies were called to the shopping center at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday after receiving reports of a man armed with a gun, according to authorities.
Deputies found and then exchanged gunfire with the suspect outside a Walgreens near the intersection of Carnelian and 19th streets, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department told KABC.
It’s unclear if the suspect was wounded during that exchange, but he then ran into a nearby Sprouts Farmers Market, authorities said.
In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department said deputies shot the man, but did not provide any further details as to where and when he was struck, or whether the suspect fired any shots into or from inside the market.
Video footage from OnScene.TV showed a shattered glass door at the Sprouts and a sheriff’s deputy being taken from the scene in the back of an ambulance. It was not immediately clear how the deputy was injured.
The suspect, who has not yet been publicly identified, was taken by ambulance to a hospital, but later died from his injuries, the sheriff’s department told KABC.
A man was in critical condition after allegedly fatally shooting a woman in Lancaster early Sunday, then attempting suicide, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The pair were described only as male and female Hispanic adults. The man confronted the woman in another man’s Lancaster home, according to a statement released Sunday by the Sheriff’s Department. The suspect shot one round into the home; no one was injured.
The suspect and the woman, “who are believed to be an estranged couple,” according to the department’s statement, left the home together in the woman’s vehicle. They got into an argument and stopped the vehicle at East Avenue H and Challenger Way in Lancaster.
About 12:30 a.m. Sunday, they stepped out of the vehicle as they continued arguing. The suspect shot and killed the woman before driving away in her vehicle, leaving her body behind, the statement said.
At 2:09 a.m., the suspect drove to Palmdale, where he shot himself inside the victim’s vehicle outside the home of a member of her family, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
The suspect was treated for an apparent gunshot wound at a nearby hospital. He was listed in critical condition, a sheriff’s spokesperson said Sunday evening. The spokesperson said no additional information about the incident was being released yet, including the identities of the suspect and the victim.
The Sheriff’s Department statement said homicide investigators continued to investigate the incident.
The department urged anyone with information about the incident to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500.
A San Dimas woman has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of her wife with a sword during a fight at their home, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
Weichien Huang, 44, was booked on suspicion of the murder of Chen Chen Fei, 47, on July 18.
Huang attacked Fei with the weapon during an argument in the couple’s home, the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. She also allegedly attacked and injured Fei’s mother, who despite her injuries was able to wrest the sword away from Huang and run into the street for help.
Deputies responding to the couple’s home in the 300 block of South Huntington Avenue first encountered a bloodied woman in the street holding a sword who approached deputies as they drove up in their police cruiser, according to reporting from news station KTLA.
She complied with directions to put down the sword and directed deputies to the residence, where they discovered Fei’s body and a second uninjured woman.
Fei’s mother remains in stable condition at a local hospital.
A man was shot to death Saturday night in Rancho Cordova, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office confirms. Deputies say the man was shot on Barbera Way. The call for the report came in at 8 p.m.Officials are investigating his death as suspicious and homicide detectives are headed to the scene. We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. —
A man was shot to death Saturday night in Rancho Cordova, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office confirms.
Deputies say the man was shot on Barbera Way. The call for the report came in at 8 p.m.
Officials are investigating his death as suspicious and homicide detectives are headed to the scene.
We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
The Sheriff’s Office in Mohave County, Ariz., is investigating the death of a baby girl earlier this month after her parents took her boating in 120-degree heat.
The 4-month-old fell unconscious shortly after 5 p.m. July 5 while on a boat on Lake Havasu — a reservoir straddling the state line between Mohave County and California’s San Bernardino County, the department said in a statement.
The infant was taken to Havasu Regional Medical Center in Lake Havasu City to be treated for heat-related illness, and was pronounced dead after she was transferred to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the department said.
Mohave sheriff’s officials did not name the parents or the child, but a GoFundMe account identified the mother as Alyssa Wroblewski and the girl as Tanna Rae.
The baby’s father, identified by the “Today” show as Matthew, is believed to be a law enforcement officer in the Inland Empire. State records indicate he’s a police detective.
Alyssa Wroblewski did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The infant’s death occurred amid an excessive heat warning in Mohave County. Temperatures around Lake Havasu regularly soar well into the triple digits in the summer, and reached 120 degrees on July 5, according to National Weather Service data.
Last year, more than 4,426 people went to emergency rooms in the state for heat-related illnesses, including 215 people in Mohave County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The recent heatwave also claimed the life of a 2-year-old girl in Marana, Ariz., southeast of Phoenix, after her father left her sleeping in a car with the air conditioning on while he ran inside the house, according to the Marana Police Department. The vehicle, police said, stopped running at some point.
The GoFundMe post for the Wroblewskis said they were enjoying a day on the lake when Tanna lost consciousness. Her parents tried to resuscitate her before a Lake Havasu City Fire Department crew arrived.
“Our precious baby girl gave us her last smiles and we gave her our last kisses,” the post read. “We will never understand why you had to leave so soon, you were just too perfect.”
The GoFundMe account included photos of the family, including one of baby Tanna smiling widely and dressed in a monster-truck onesie, a bow on her head.
Shortly after the child’s death, Alyssa Wroblewski posted a tribute to her on Facebook, according to the “Today” show.
“These are the last photos I took of you before you left us,” Wroblewski wrote in the July 8 post. “Your smile radiated joy. … I never thought there would be a day in my life without you.”
Wroblewski said the family was struggling to make sense of what happened that day.
Her July 8 post has since been made private or taken down. Some Facebook users had criticized Wroblewski and her husband for taking the infant boating amid such high temperatures, according to KSLA News 12.
One legal expert called it “kind of bunk.” Another said it simply raises more questions than it answers.
But two months after state prosecutors announced 11 felony charges against a top advisor to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, a newly unsealed court record offers a window into the controversial case.
The basis for the allegations against Gascón advisor Diana Teran had remained opaque since California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced them in April.
State prosecutors have said only that Teran improperly accessed confidential police records while working as the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s constitutional policing advisor in 2018, then improperly used data from those records when she joined the district attorney’s office three years later.
It’s been unclear whose files she’d allegedly used or how, but after weeks of legal wrangling, an attorney for the Los Angeles Public Press convinced a judge to unseal the affidavit used to justify the arrest warrant.
The 15-page document, unsealed late Tuesday, shows the core allegations are focused on Teran’s efforts to include more deputies’ names in district attorney’s databases used to track problem officers, much as her attorney had previously speculated.
But the document also shows that records of disciplinary against at least two of the 11 deputies were already public when she flagged them for inclusion. This week, The Times found the records were easily located through a Google search.
The identities of the nine other deputies were still redacted in the public version of the affidavit — though Teran’s lawyer said he was “99% confident” their records were already public as well.
“I can’t believe a case would be filed on this type of evidence,” James Spertus told The Times. “I understated before how bad this case was.”
On Wednesday, several legal experts who reviewed the affidavit raised questions about the case.
“It strikes me as we’ve lost the forest for the trees from a broader criminal justice point of view,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a San Francisco attorney with a background in computer crimes. “It’s not like she’s putting people on the database who shouldn’t be there.”
In an emailed statement, Bonta’s office declined to comment, citing the need to “protect the integrity” of a pending case.
One law enforcement source familiar with the matter — who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record — said the state is considering dropping two of the charges against Teran, and late Wednesday, Spertus confirmed that was his expectation as well.
With months to go before the general election — in which Gascón is facing a serious challenger — some have taken the Teran prosecution as a political betrayal, because Bonta endorsed Gascón four years ago. But it’s unclear what, if any, impact the controversy will have on the race.
The district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department did not immediately offer comment.
The 15-page affidavit signed by Special Agent Tony Baca of the state Department of Justice traces the investigation into Teran back to a traffic stop involving a different district attorney’s official three years ago.
The affidavit doesn’t identify that official, but the details line up with the December 2021 arrest of Gascón’s chief of staff, Joseph Iniguez.
As The Times previously reported, Azusa police pulled over Iniguez’s fiance after he allegedly made an illegal U-turn into a McDonald’s drive-through. Police said Iniguez tried to interfere with the stop, and arrested him on suspicion of public intoxication.
The police union later alleged that Iniguez threatened to have the arresting officer’s name added to the district attorney’s so-called Brady List, which contains officers with problematic disciplinary histories. The name is a reference to a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires prosecutors to turn over any evidence favorable to a defendant — including evidence of police misconduct.
Given the potential conflict of interest, the case against Iniguez was turned over to the California Department of Justice. But state prosecutors never pursued charges, and Iniguez eventually sued the Azusa Police Department in a case that was settled last year.
According to Baca’s affidavit, the state’s investigation somehow led officials to Teran, who had responsibility for the district attorney’s Brady database. The Department of Justice has not offered further explanation.
Spertus said previously he believed the investigation into his client was sparked by a complaint from former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who said in 2019 he alerted the FBI and the state Department of Justice about a “massive data breach” involving Teran. At the time, neither agency agreed to take on the case.
When Teran worked at the Sheriff’s Department under Villanueva’s predecessor, part of her usual duties included accessing confidential deputy records and internal affairs investigations. According to Baca’s affidavit, the department’s secret tracking software logged all of her searches starting in 2018.
When she joined the district attorney’s office in 2021, Teran allegedly began suggesting the names of deputies who should be added to the Brady list — a practice two prosecutors told Baca was not usual. Then in April 2021, the affidavit says, Teran sent a list of 33 names to another prosecutor for possible inclusion in the databases.
The affidavit says that several of those names were deputies whose files she’d accessed while working at the Sheriff’s Department, and that she “would not have identified so many of these deputy sheriffs” otherwise. The affidavit also alleges that some of the documents Teran sent along with the names appeared to have been “scanned, copied, or taken directly from the LASD data files.”
The 11 charges, Baca wrote, reflected the 11 of those 33 deputies whose names did “not appear in either public records request responses or media articles.”
Susan Seager, the attorney who fought for the record’s release, questioned that reasoning.
“This is a ridiculously narrow and inaccurate way of determining whether their disciplinary files are confidential,” she wrote in an emailed statement.
Seager went on to call it “stunning” that Bonta would describe the 11 deputies’ records as confidential, pointing out that two names — Liza Gonzalez and Thomas Negron — were not redacted in the released affidavit.
“Bonta’s office doesn’t explain why it unsealed those two names,” Seager wrote, “but perhaps that’s because there are two California court of appeal decisions dated 2014 and 2015 that discuss in great detail the disciplinary files of deputies Gonzalez and Negron and how they were fired for dishonesty in in 2010 and 2011, respectively.”
Other legal experts who reviewed the affidavit were similarly critical.
“I think it raises more questions than it answers — partly because there are still redactions,” said police oversight expert Michael Gennaco, adding it was “interesting” that the investigator who authored the affidavit didn’t appear to have done a case of this nature before.
Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance, panned the “absurdity” of the case.
“A prosecutor earnestly trying to do her job and track important information should be applauded not punished,” she said in an emailed statement.
Fakhoury, the attorney with a background in computer crimes, pointed out that state prosecutors don’t appear to be claiming that any of the information Teran flagged for inclusion in the Brady database was incorrect or didn’t belong there.
“It also appears to me that there’s no allegation that she didn’t have computer access to the records at least when she was employed by the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “So the unauthorized access is that she took the information she was allowed to have and used it after she left the Sheriff’s Department.”
Fakhoury said federal prosecutors have tried to argue the theory that “unauthorized access” would include cases akin to Teran’s, in which someone accessed data for a permitted purpose and later used it for a different purpose. But the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected that theory, he said, and California’s Supreme Court has not weighed in on how broadly the state statute should be interpreted.
“It’s an odd case,” he said. “I think it’s kind of bunk, frankly.”
Legally, he said, it might not matter whether the records were already public —though that could raise larger questions about the decision to prosecute Teran.
He wondered whether it might have a “chilling effect” on other prosecutors focused on police accountability: “Is this what we really want this kind of statute and this kind of investigation to go after?”
Times staff writers James Queally and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
York County sheriff candidates. top row, left to right: Heath Clevenger, Beth Bryant Tolson, Chris Blevins. Bottom row, left to right: Michael Belk and Tony Breeden
Herald file
York County SC
Republicans Michael Belk and Tony Breeden will head to a runoff on June 25 after leading all night in the competitive York County sheriff’s primary. The two were just a percentage point apart.
At 11:30 p.m, Belk had over 26% of the vote, with 24,285 votes cast and 99 out of 100 precincts reported. Breeden had over 25%.
The first-place finisher needed more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff. Because there’s no Democratic competition, the face-off between Belk and Breeden in two weeks will select the next sheriff to take office in January 2025.
The runoff pits Belk, the deputy chief at the Rock Hill Police Department, against Breeden, who retired from Rock Hill police in 2022.
Here were unofficial the results around 11:30 p.m., according to the S.C. Election Commission:
Belk, the first-place candidate, had over 26% of the vote
Second-place candidate Tony Breeden had over 25%
Beth Bryant Tolson had around 18%
Chris Blevins had 17%
Heath Clevenger had 12%.
Belk, 53, has worked for Rock Hill police for 31 years. He rose through the ranks to be second-in-command at a department with more than 200 employees.
Belk said around 11:30 p.m. he appreciated the support from the community and was honored to receive the most votes. Belk said he looks forward to the runoff.
“Our team still needs those voters who showed up today — and a lot more — to show up again on the 25th,” Belk said. “It’s clear that York County wants an experienced sheriff that is a proven leader and tough on crime.”
Breeden said he feels confident about being positioned for a runoff. He thanked those who voted for him Tuesday, and said a runoff will give voters a chance to look closer at the remaining candidates.
“Once they take a look at the candidates, I believe I will be the clear favorite,” Breeden said.
Meanwhile, Tolson, wife of current sheriff Kevin Tolson and daughter of former sheriff Bruce Bryant, trailed the top two candidates throughout the night. Retired deputy Blevins was close behind Tolson in fourth place.
In a statement to The Herald, Clevenger conceded he would not win or make a runoff late Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, tonight did not go the way we’d hoped it would,” Clevenger said. “Still, it was an honor getting to know the voters of York County in these past few months”
When asked who he would endorse if the race goes to runoff, Clevenger declined comment.
The sheriff earns $209,261 per year and serves a four-year term.
York County sheriff primary
The Republican winner is almost assured to win the November general election and take office in January because there are no Democratic or other party candidates.
Current sheriff Kevin Tolson filed for re-election March 18, but withdrew from the race when filing ended April 1 — when his wife filed for the job. He supported his wife’s bid for sheriff. State law allowed the party to extend filing because there was only one candidate left after the withdrawal of Kevin Tolson.
The sheriff’s office has than 300 employees in law enforcement and detention. The sheriff has countywide jurisdiction, but is separate from municipal police departments in Rock Hill, Fort Mill, York, Clover and Tega Cay. The annual budget for the sheriff’s office is around $55 million, York County documents show.
The sheriff’s office has its own lab for DNA and drugs and and other forensic testing, and operates units that include patrol, detectives, traffic, and other specialized services.
This story was originally published June 11, 2024, 8:06 PM.
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Andrew Dys covers breaking news and public safety for The Herald, where he has been a reporter and columnist since 2000. He has won 51 South Carolina Press Association awards for his coverage of crime, race, justice, and people. He is author of the book “Slice of Dys” and his work is in the U.S. Library of Congress.
Los Angeles County prosecutors charged a 40-year-old man with sexually assaulting two women in his van in a secluded part of the Angeles National Forest earlier this week.
Eduardo Sarabia was charged Wednesday with one count of forcible rape and one count of forcible oral copulation, according to court records. Sarabia is accused of raping a woman after driving her to a concealed area of the forest on Sunday and then sexually assaulting a second woman in the same remote area on Monday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s office announced in a news release. The incidents took place along Highway 39 between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. authorities said.
“The horrific and violent sexual assault that these two survivors endured by the alleged suspect is deeply troubling and incomprehensible. Our thoughts are with the victims during this tremendously difficult time,” Gascón said in a statement on Thursday.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is asking for the public’s help to find any additional victims. Based on the circumstances surrounding the case, investigators believe there could be more unidentified victims. The Sheriff’s Department released images of Sarabia and his windowless white-paneled van.
“I want to emphasize that this is an ongoing investigation, and there may be additional victims who have yet to come forward. I urge anyone who has been affected by similar incidents to contact law enforcement and seek available resources,” Gascón said.
Sarabia was arraigned in a Pomona courtroom Wednesday and is due back in court June 27. Anyone with information about this case can contact the Sheriff’s Department, Special Victims Bureau at 877-710-5273 or by email at specialvictimsbureau@lasd.org.
California’s attorney general filed criminal charges Wednesday against one of L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s top advisors, who supervises high-profile and sensitive cases including police misconduct, fraud and public corruption.
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced the 11 felony counts against Assistant Dist. Atty. Diana Teran in a press statement. He accused her of improperly downloading confidential records of police officers in 2018 while she was working for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. Teran then “impermissibly used that data” after joining Gascón’s office three years later, Bonta said.
The confidential records concern 11 sheriff’s deputies, according to a criminal complaint filed in L.A. Superior Court. The deputies’ names were not included in the court filing.
The announcement of criminal charges against one of Gascón’s top advisors — particularly one so closely tied to his agenda of law enforcement accountability and criminal justice reform — sent shock waves across the state’s legal community and was expected to have a far-reaching impact on active and future criminal cases handled by Gascón’s office, while also fueling fresh controversy as he pursues reelection this year.
“No one is above the law,” said Bonta, a fellow Democrat and police reform advocate, in a statement issued by his press office. “Public officials are called to serve the people and the State of California with integrity and honesty. At the California Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the people of California and hold those who break the law accountable.”
Teran referred questions to her attorney, James Spertus, who called the case “dead on arrival” and said he was stunned to see the charges, since his client had been cooperating with a criminal investigation into the allegations.
“They’re charging her for doing something within the scope of her employment, that she has a duty to do,” Spertus said in an interview Wednesday.
Teran, who has been a lawyer for more than 35 years, worked for years as a deputy district attorney in L.A. County before assuming posts involving law enforcement monitoring and oversight. In 2018, she served as a constitutional policing advisor to the Sheriff’s Department, then as a consultant to the Office of Inspector General, which provides oversight to the department. In 2019, she became a law enforcement accountability advisor with the L.A. County public defender’s office.
After Gascón’s election victory, Teran joined his administration in early 2021 as a special advisor and later began running the Justice System Integrity Division, or JSID, which handles prosecutions of police and attorney misconduct. Her hiring was one of many criticized by longtime prosecutors frustrated by Gascón’s willingness to empower attorneys who had previously done defense work.
Gascón recently promoted Teran to assistant district attorney, giving her supervisory authority over units that prosecute organized crime, white collar crime and corruption, as well as crimes by law enforcement and attorneys.
Teran’s current employment status is unclear, and a spokesperson for Gascón’s office declined to specify whether she remains an assistant district attorney.
The criminal complaint offers little detail about the underlying allegations. A source familiar with the case who was not authorized to speak on the record said the charges related to documents that Teran had downloaded while she worked at the Sheriff’s Department and were subsequently provided to the discovery unit at the D.A.’s office.
Spertus said that the investigation into his client was sparked by a complaint from former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who routinely clashed with those who attempted to provide oversight of his department, including Teran. In a livestream Wednesday evening, Villanueva echoed that, saying that in 2019 he alerted the FBI and the attorney general to concerns about Teran downloading information he described as a “massive data breach.”
Though the complaint does not spell out what data Teran may have illegally misused, Spertus said he believed state prosecutors were erroneously trying to charge Teran for uploading public documents to the district attorney’s “Brady List.”
Under the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brady vs. Maryland, prosecutors must turn over evidence favorable to defendants, which could include information that undermines a police officer’s credibility or reveals past dishonesty or wrongdoing. The Brady List refers to a database of law enforcement officers who have been accused or convicted of on-duty misconduct.
Spertus believed the documents and data in question were either obtained through public court files or involved findings of dishonesty against sheriff’s deputies, which would be public record under Senate Bill 1421, California’s landmark police transparency law.
That law, which makes information about serious uses of force, allegations of sexual assault or dishonesty by California police officers a public record, did not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2019. Teran is alleged to have obtained the information in question in 2018.
“It’s unsustainable on its face,” Spertus said of the allegation. “You don’t need permission to use public information. They can’t say that she wrongfully took anything,” he said, adding, “She had documents in her possession. She had an obligation to her employer to build out the Brady database.”
In a statement to The Times, Villanueva called the charges against Teran “a vindication of my administration” and credited state prosecutors with uncovering “the truth.”
“Many more public corruption cases involving Los Angeles County elected leaders and their appointees are being investigated by Mr. Bonta’s office, and based on what I know of the evidence, I expect further indictments,” Villanueva added.
Gascón did not directly address the charges against Teran, but in a statement he defended his office’s handling of confidential law enforcement records.
“When I took office, we developed a protocol that ensured we complied with our constitutional obligations under Brady — which requires us to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense, a category that includes law enforcement’s prior misconduct — while simultaneously complying with state and federal law around privacy. I stand by that protocol,” Gascón said Wednesday.
Gascón emphasized that the case would not deter him from carrying out his agenda.
“I remain committed to upholding transparency and ensuring police accountability within Los Angeles County,” he said in the statement.
Gascón’s opponent in the district attorney’s race, Nathan Hochman, pounced on the charges.
“This is just the latest example of Gascón’s demonstrated record of poor judgment and lack of leadership in running the district attorney’s office,” Hochman said in a written response. “Promoting Teran to Assistant District Attorney, ironically in charge of ethics and integrity, even occurred despite legitimate objections from many experienced prosecutors.”
This is not the first time Teran has been publicly accused of misconduct while in Gascón’s employ.
Late last year, the former second in command of the JSID unit filed a civil suit alleging that Teran ordered prosecutors to delay announcing the decision not to charge a sheriff’s deputy in a high-profile excessive-force case because of how it might affect the reelection bid of then-Sheriff Villanueva.
Richard Pippin, president of the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the union that represents rank-and-file sheriff’s deputies, called for a broader investigation into the “deeply troubling” allegations.
“During her tenure with the sheriff’s department, Diana Teran’s contempt for the people who strive to keep our communities safe was apparent, and so we weren’t surprised to see District Attorney George Gascón place her in a position as one of his top advisors,” Pippin said in a statement Wednesday. “ALADS is demanding a complete investigation of all matters, access to sensitive records and other actions taken by Diana Teran and her staff during her entire tenure. This investigation should not be limited in scope or effort.”
A woman who went missing during a hike near the Angeles National Forest was found dead on Monday, a day after she was reported missing.
Julia Li, 21,was last seen near Bailey Canyon Park in Sierra Madre at 4 p.m. Sunday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Li’s mother reported her missing after they were separated during a hike and Li didn’t meet her at their car at the agreed-upon time, according to KTLA-TV.
Julia Li, 21, was last seen alive near Bailey Canyon Park in Sierra Madre on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
(LAPD)
Early Monday morning, the Sheriff’s Department sent out an alert for Li, describing her as being 5 feet 2 and 110 pounds. Later that day, her body was found by the sheriff’s search and rescue personnel, the Sheriff’s Department said.
The L.A. County coroner’s office listed Li’s cause of death as blunt trauma. The Sheriff’s Department said foul play is not suspected at this time.
A veteran Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has died six months after he was severely burned in a fire at one of the department’s mobile shooting ranges, a family spokesperson said Sunday.
Alfredo “Freddy” Flores, 51, of Sylmar, died Saturday evening at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, where he was being treated for third-degree burns suffered when a tractor-trailer range where he was getting re-certified burst into flames last October in Castaic.
Flores, and a second injured deputy serving as range master, were initially taken to a local hospital in critical but stable condition and sent to Los Angeles General Medical Center for further treatment. Flores was transferred to Valley Presbyterian and never left the Van Nuys hospital, said attorney and family spokesman Joe A. Nunez.
Flores was a 22-year department veteran who worked at the North County Correctional Facility, Altadena Station and, at the time of the accident, Court Services West Bureau. “He was well-respected in the department and in the community and his passing will leave a huge void in the hearts of many who knew him,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
The department did not provide an update on the condition of the other injured deputy.
The blaze started around 9:30 a.m. Oct. 10 in the trailer, which was parked next to the men’s jail at Pitchess Detention Center. At the time, Sheriff Robert Luna said the department would conduct an investigation to find out the cause and “get to the bottom of it so we prevent it from happening again.”
The Department has relied on more than a dozen range trailers so thousands of deputies can test their skills four times a year as required by department policy. After the fire, the department shut down all of its mobile firing ranges, launched an internal investigation and called in the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for help.
It was at least the fourth time in less than a decade that a Sheriff’s Department mobile range caught fire.
In 2016, a contractor working on a trailer parked at the department’s Tactics and Survival Training Center using a metal grinder sparked a blaze. It is unclear how much damage it caused or if anyone was injured.
In 2019, a mobile trailer being used by sheriff’s deputies at the Marina del Rey sheriff’s station during a training exercise caught fire when a non-explosive device used to simulate a stun grenade started a fire that engulfed the trailer. All the deputies escaped injury.
That same year, a trailer parked near the Castaic jail complex caught fire. As with the 2016 blaze, officials said the cause was a contractor with a power tool. The department did not offer additional details.
Multiple range experts told The Times last year that mobile range fires appear to be rare but there is a risk of fire from unburned gunpowder at any range that isn’t adequately cleaned and ventilated.
In a statement, Nunez said Flores’ family was “acutely aware of the inherent risks associated with the position” but nothing could have prepared it for “his untimely departure due to injuries sustained stemming from the malfunction of equipment during a training drill.”
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn released a similar statement Sunday, saying that though Flores “put his life on the line every day to protect the communities he served, it is a terrible tragedy that he lost his life from what should have been a routine training exercise.”
Nunez said the family was thankful the department is not using mobile shooting ranges and would not comment if they would be filing a wrongful-death lawsuit. He said he was serving as a family spokesperson.
Funeral arrangement have not yet been completed, he said.
Times staff writer Keri Blakinger contributed to this report.
A man suspected of spraying gunfire from atop a Marina del Rey apartment complex over the weekend was identified Monday by authorities.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department identified the suspect as 41-year-old Victoryloc Nguyen, who remains jailed in lieu of $2-million bail.
No one was injured in the Saturday night shooting in the 4100 block of Via Marina, according to a written statement from the Sheriff’s Department.
The incident began at 10:15 p.m. when deputies from the Marina del Rey sheriff’s station responded to reports of gunshots from inside the apartment complex.
Later, a sheriff’s helicopter “observed a male suspect on the roof of the location, firing rounds from a rifle,” the statement read.
The shooting prompted deputies from other nearby stations to respond to the location, and armored SWAT-style vehicles were dispatched.
Videos posted on social media show a man shooting from the balcony of an apartment who can be heard saying: “I can shoot a car right now and no one would give a s—.” In other videos, bystanders shelter at home or take cover while gunfire can be heard in the background.
Witnesses told KTLA that as many as 100 rounds were fired from the building. Jeff Rubin, who was hiding with his wife in their apartment’s bathroom, said there were at least 20 minutes of silence.
“Then another round of gunshots and that went on for three hours,” he told the news station.
A pair of photographs of the scene released by the sheriff’s SWAT unit show two rifles, a handgun and tactical gear lying on the ground after the suspect’s arrest early Sunday.
City News Service reported that the suspect was a self-employed chef who specializes in organic traditional Vietnamese cuisine and might have been live-streaming the shooting.
Authorities said the motive for the shooting was not known. Nguyen is due in court Tuesday.
A Denver Sheriff Department vehicle. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)
If someone calls claiming to be the Denver Sheriff Department — and that they have a warrant out for your arrest and you need to send them Bitcoin ASAP — they’re probably not from the Denver Sheriff Department.
The Sheriff Department is warning Denverites about a new phone fraud approach involving scammers calling people impersonating a Denver Sheriff Deputy. The scammers call with a number similar to those on the Department’s website, give out a fake badge number and sometimes transfer potential victims to a “higher-ranking official.”
According to the Sheriff Department, scammers then tell the victim there is a warrant out for their arrest and instruct the person to pay them in Bitcoin to avoid going to jail.
“A DSD deputy or a higher-ranking official will never request payment for failing to appear in court,” wrote Daria Serna, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department. “A DSD deputy will never make contact by phone or suggest meeting on the street or at a facility for a cash payment and will never ask to wire money or utilize a Bitcoin machine.”
The scam comes as scammers and phone fraud become increasingly sophisticated.
Scammers will often impersonate loved ones or use the threat of jail time or caution a security breach that must be fixed by sending money to the scammer.
If people receive calls from groups like their bank or a local police department, experts recommend hanging up and calling the group or company directly.
In 2023, Colaradans lost more than $187 million to scammers, according to an FBI report released Monday. Colorado had the seventh highest number of fraud complaints per capita. The Denver Sheriff’s Department is urging people who receive suspicious calls from someone claiming to be a Sheriff’s Deputy to report the information to police and report the call to the State Attorney General’s fraud line.
More than three years after the California Department of Justice launched a civil rights investigation into the troubled Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the case is finally headed toward a sprawling settlement agreement expected to touch on issues including jail conditions, deputy gangs and staffing, according to sources familiar with the matter and emails viewed by The Times.
The investigative findings — which remain secret — span over 100 pages and sources say they include controversial recommendations for deputies to curtail making traffic stops, stop enforcing some drug laws and complete hundreds more hours of training.
Initially launched in January 2021 under Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general at the time, the probe came amid a string of controversial shootings, costly lawsuits, repeated allegations of deputy misconduct and then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s resistance to oversight.
Though a new administration is in place, many of the same problems remain – some of which the state detailed when presenting the findings of its investigation to department officials and other stakeholders in a recent meeting, according to four sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Already, the findings and recommendations have sparked pushback, some from oversight officials who raised concerns about the lack of transparency and some from union leaders who questioned the practicality of the state’s nearly 400 recommendations.
“Preventing deputies from conducting traffic stops and enforcing drug laws might seem like a good idea to those living in gated communities or with armed protective details,” Richard Pippin, president of the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, wrote in a recent message to union members. “But ALADS knows our community partners in the contract cities and elsewhere will be shocked by some of these proposals that are best described as elitist and unrealistic.”
The Sheriff’s Department said this week it was “not at liberty” to discuss the matter, while Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office did not respond to The Times’ request for comment. Lawyers for Los Angeles County said only that they’d been in communication with the state and “hoped to avoid litigation.”
The Sheriff’s Department is already subject to five more narrowly targeted settlement agreements overseen by federal courts. One centers on racial profiling and policing practices in the Antelope Valley, while the other four relate to the conditions and treatment of inmates in the county jails. The oldest of those cases dates back to the 1970s, but it remains open because the department has never fully complied with the settlement terms.
Given the scope of the state’s latest investigation, a new settlement agreement could be far broader than those already in place. And given the sheer size of the Sheriff’s Department — the largest in the country, with a $4-billion budget — it could be one of the most expansive that the California Department of Justice has ever entered.
Word of the state’s voluminous findings began making the rounds last week, after Sheriff Robert Luna sent a lengthy email to deputies offering a vague update on the status of the case.
“As some of you may know, three years ago in January 2021, the California Department of Justice (CAL-DOJ) began a civil rights investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to determine whether the LASD has engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing,” the email began, according to a copy reviewed by The Times.
“We have been communicating with the CAL-DOJ officials and look forward to addressing the issues of concern and coming into compliance,” the sheriff continued. “We expect further communication with CAL-DOJ in the weeks and months ahead regarding proposed corrective actions.”
The email did not offer a clear timeline for the next steps, but Luna wrote that the department, county lawyers and “other key stakeholders” would need to evaluate the findings and recommendations, which he said would touch on more than a dozen areas, including use of force, arrests, deputy gangs, internal investigations, discipline, oversight, community engagement, training, staffing and conditions in the jails.
A state civil rights probe was already underway when Sheriff Robert Luna took office in 2022.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
Any agreement reached between CAL-DOJ and the Sheriff’s Department will help make sure the department complies with state laws and standards and could improve trust from the community, he said.
“As we work towards finalizing the specifics, we will keep you informed of any developments or changes as we work through this together,” Luna wrote. “Community trust is at the core of our work in public safety and with this agreement we will improve our systems and Department to better serve the citizens of Los Angeles County.”
California law allows the attorney general to investigate law enforcement agencies suspected of engaging in a “pattern or practice” of violating state or federal law. Unlike with criminal investigations that focus on specific incidents, a pattern or practice investigation looks more broadly at whether a law enforcement agency routinely violates people’s constitutional rights.
When he first announced the Los Angeles County investigation in late January 2021, Becerra raised concerns about the lack of comprehensive oversight of the department as well as allegations of retaliation, excessive force and other misconduct.
“There are serious concerns and reports that accountability and adherence to legitimate policing practices have lapsed at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,” he said in a statement at the time. “We are undertaking this investigation to determine if LASD has violated the law or the rights of the people of Los Angeles County.”
At the time, Becerra did not specify a focus for the investigation, saying that his office was “not placing a particular scope and time or place, or person” in the crosshairs.
Though Becerra initially said a thorough report on the investigation’s findings would be made public, it is not clear whether his successor still plans to do that. One county source familiar with the matter said it was likely the detailed findings would remain secret, though a signed settlement agreement would eventually become public.
The original announcement of the investigation three years ago came after a series of high-profile shootings by deputies that triggered widespread protests and demands from community organizers and lawmakers for independent investigations. Those calls were amplified after the June 2020 killing of 18-year-old Andres Guardado, who was shot five times in the back by a deputy assigned to the Compton station.
Last year — a few months before both that deputy and his partner were sentenced to federal prison for an unrelated incident — The Times obtained a leaked email showing that the California Department of Justice had taken up the Guardado case. It’s not clear if that became part of the civil rights probe or if it is being handled separately, though 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.
When Becerra opened the broader civil rights probe in 2021, local activists and oversight officials heralded the move. Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, called it “a step forward in the names of people like Dijon Kizzee and Andres Guardado and so many others” killed by L.A. deputies, adding that she hoped it would uncover corruption in the department and bring an end to deputy gangs.
Robert Bonner, a former federal judge who now serves on the watchdog Civilian Oversight Commission, said at the time that he hoped the investigation would focus on deputy cliques and would eventually lead to a consent decree requiring their elimination.
Though Villanueva didn’t learn of the probe until it was announced publicly, he said in 2021 that he welcomed the attorney general’s investigation and promised to cooperate.
“Our department may finally have an impartial, objective assessment of our operations, and recommendations on any areas we can improve our service to the community,” he said. “We are eager to get this process started, in the interest of transparency and accountability.”
This week in an email to The Times, Villanueva — whom voters replaced two years ago with the current sheriff — took a dimmer view of the state’s investigation.
“The entire premise of their investigation was political retaliation by the Board of Supervisors and their political appointees,” he wrote, accusing supervisors of lobbying the attorney general to open the case. “With federal consent decrees covering most of LASD operations already, there is little room for state intervention,” he added.
Union officials also worried about the burden of adding new requirements from another sprawling settlement.
“The report clearly indicates that every deputy would be required to complete hundreds of hours of training to satisfy even the baseline requirements,” Pippin wrote in his message to union members. “The report also challenges the direct authority of the sworn chain of command and moves much of the power and decision-making authority to offices or groups with zero operational experience,” he continued, saying the state’s recommendations would “create confusion in the chain of command.”
Meanwhile some oversight officials worried about the apparent lack of outside input.
“I just hope the attorney general and the county officials will take input from the community before reaching a final settlement,” said Sean Kennedy, who chairs the Civilian Oversight Commission. “No real solution can be forged without hearing from the people most affected by decades of unconstitutional policing.”
At the outset, it was expected that the inquiry would involve interviews with local officials, members of oversight panels and community groups — though it’s not clear who has been interviewed or what the investigation ultimately entailed. Kennedy said the oversight commission has not been included in “any of the settlement meetings to date.”
A similar investigation of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office that started in 2016 led to a settlement agreement four years later, when the agency agreed to implement a laundry list of reforms that included a ban on the use of chokeholds, a new procedure for reporting deputy shootings to the public and stricter rules governing deputy searches.
Nearly a decade earlier a two-year probe overseen by then-Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown found that Maywood, a small city in southeastern Los Angeles County, was patrolled by “rogue cops” who arrested people without probable cause and routinely used excessive force.
The Maywood Police Department reached an agreement with the state that required the city to raise its hiring standards, publish annual audits of the department’s operations, and equip officers with audio recorders and their cruisers with video cameras, among other reforms. A year after entering the agreement, Maywood disbanded its police force and instead contracted with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
A man has been charged with his girlfriend’s murder after she was found unresponsive in a tent off Fayetteville Road, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday night.
The Sheriff’s Office reported that Joe Anthony Jr., 57, has been charged with murder and assault inflicting serious bodily injury in connection with the death of Dorothy Smith, 50, according to a news release.
On Tuesday night, deputies responded to a report of a woman’s overdose in the woods in the 7100 block of Fayetteville Road. There, they found Smith, who was unresponsive, and attempted livesaving measures. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Anthony was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault inflicting serious bodily injury.
Authorities said that the charges were upgraded Wednesday to murder “after further investigation and consultation with the Wake County District Attorney’s Office.”
The Sheriff’s Office did not provide additional details.
He is being held without bond at the Wake County Detention Center.
Fayetteville Road runs south of Raleigh. The location where Smith was found is southwest of Garner.
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Jessica Banov is an analytics and features editor. She is the night Breaking News Editor for McClatchy’s Southeast region. She oversees coverage of entertainment for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun. She is the News & Observer’s intern program coordinator.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a man late Saturday in East Los Angeles after he allegedly drove a van toward one of the officers after fleeing the scene of a crime, authorities said.
Deputies responded to a domestic assault call shortly before midnight in the 1500 block of North Herbert Avenue, according to the sheriff’s department.
Deputies saw the alleged assailant leave the area in a green van, according to the department.
They found the man driving west on the 3900 block of Snow Drive and tried to stop the van, officials said. The deputies got out of their vehicle and drew their guns. The man made a U-turn in a cul-de-sac and then started driving toward one of the deputies, according to the sheriff’s department.
The driver was shot in the torso, about 11:47 p.m. The sheriff’s department did not immediately report how many deputies shot the man or how many times he was shot.
The unidentified man, reported to be between 40 to 45, was taken to a hospital, where he died, officials said.
A deputy was taken to a hospital and treated for a related injury. No one else was injured.
As of late Sunday morning, the sheriff’s department had not released the name of the man or further details surrounding the shooting.
This is a breaking news story based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement. It will be updated if more information becomes immediately available.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies were captured on video kneeling on a man and striking him in the head during an arrest, an incident that has sparked public outrage and prompted authorities to place one deputy on leave and launch an internal investigation.
According to the Sheriff’s Department, deputies from the Hesperia station responded to a reported armed robbery in the 16000 block of Main Street on Sunday. They later identified Christian Cardenas Alonso, 36, of Adelanto, as a suspect in the case.
At 4:51 p.m. Tuesday, investigators located and pulled over Alonso at the intersection of Main Street and E Avenue. Authorities say they attempted to arrest Alonso, but he resisted and “a use of force occurred.”
In bystander video posted to social media, four sheriff’s deputies can be seen kneeling on top of a man who is lying face down on the gravel outside a car. At one point, a plainclothes officer knees the man in the head multiple times.
Jesse Vega, a local car enthusiast and smog technician who took the video, happened to be filming Alonso’s vehicle — a 1964 Chevrolet Impala — at the time.
“I’ve never seen somebody’s eyes go black the way like [his] just bruised up that fast,” Vega said. “His jaw at his right side was pretty swollen, his face looked like it was crooked.”
San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement that a deputy seen striking Alonso has been place on administrative leave as the district attorney’s office reviews the incident.
The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
After detaining Alonso, authorities said, they found items belonging to the victim of the armed robbery in his trunk. They subsequently searched his business — Califa Style Tattoo Ink, also in the 16000 block of Main Street — at around 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. There, investigators said they recovered a firearm, ammunition and unspecified gang paraphernalia and confronted individuals inside the tattoo shop who they allege were gang members.
In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department also alleged that Alonso was an “active criminal street gang member.”
Jesus Basulto, a tattoo artist who works at Califa Style Tattoo Ink, said he was about to take his 13-year-old daughter miniature golfing when deputies “came in by surprise” and pointed a gun at his child while they searched the business.
Basulto said there was “nothing gang-related” in his work and that he, Alonso and his coworkers are innocent.
“We are all here supporting our families,” a confused and upset Basulto said in a phone interview. “We want to do something positive.”
The shop has been closed since Tuesday out of fear of harassment from law enforcement, Basulto said. He also alleged that the deputies turned off surveillance footage of the shop’s entry and falsified documentation claiming he was carrying a firearm during his arrest.
The Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to a phone call or email seeking comment on Basulto’s allegations Friday evening.
“All of them should be held accountable,” he said.
Next door to Califa Style Tattoo Ink, Damian Rodriguez was the manager on shift at Roll Over Beethoven’s Music Store when deputies arrived. Rodriguez has worked at the music store for nine years and said Main Street “is just not that safe of a place,” but that normal business has for the most part resumed on their block.
Rodriguez said that Califa Style Tattoo Ink was a newer tenant that opened two or three years ago and seemed to be doing pretty well.
“Whenever they have flash deals or anything, like most tattoo shops they were pretty packed,” he said.
In that time, he said, he never experienced trouble with his neighbors. In passing, Rodriguez would wave hello while taking out the trash.
“All the employees there have been real cool and wonderful with us,” he said.
