LOS ANGELES (CN) --- A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge blasted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department's “feet dragging” to respond to a Public Records Act request from the Los Angeles Times seeking disciplinary files on officers.
On Friday, the judge gave the sheriff’s department 90 days to respond to the request.
The Los Angeles Times requested all disciplinary letters of all LASD personnel, including 325 deputies, on Jan. 1, 2019 --- the day Senate Bill 1421 took effect and expanded the pool of police records deemed not confidential. Those include officer use-of-force incidents, sexual assault, acts of dishonesty and any time an officer fired their gun.
After SB 1421 took effect law enforcement unions fought it claiming records produced before Jan. 1, 2019, were exempt. Several court cases across California ended with the same result --- judges found Legislature intended the law to be retroactive.
While police agencies across the state have begun rolling out disciplinary records to the public, the LA County Sheriff’s Department’s pour out like molasses much to the dismay of LA Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff. He excoriated the sheriff’s department and LA County for its slow rollout at a hearing Friday, saying at the current rate of response it would take years for the sheriff’s department to fully comply with the Times’ request.
“The problem is the sheriff’s department has taken this 'we’ll get it done when we get it done' attitude,” Beckloff said from the bench. “I don’t know what’s exactly going on, but in my mind, there is absolutely no way you could justify the amount of production that has been made in 30 months. It’s just inconceivable to me. I think as a matter of law I could not find you were prompt.”
LA County's attorney Jason Tokoro from Miller Barondess said the newspaper was inconsistent with its requests and direction to the county. The Times made four requests and then asked the county to prioritize just 11 disciplinary files out of the 325 that were initially requested, Tokoro said. So far, the county has produced 113 files.
But in a tentative ruling, Beckloff wrote that "even using the numbers most advantageous to the LASD, at its adopted rate of disclosure given the universe of documents, petitioner will be waiting for decades to obtain the disclosure to which it is entitled if the LASD continues at its current pace."
In court, Beckloff acknowledged that figure might be off but said the county has not produced any estimated timeline to respond. One filing from the county said it takes 96 hours to review an average file.
“We’re doing it as quickly as we can, as diligently as we can,” Tokoro told Beckloff.
The county has also claimed that until last year it was unclear if SB 1421 was retroactive, but Beckloff did not buy that as a valid argument. Tokoro requested nine months to comply with the Times' request.
Beckloff asked attorney Kelly Aviles for the Los Angeles Times if six months would be a better compromise for both sides. But Aviles asked Beckloff to keep to his 90-day deadline and perhaps offer an extension if the county and sheriff’s department show good progress.
From March 2019 through July 2020, the sheriff’s department did not produce any records requested by the news outlet.
“When you wait until the night before your homework’s due and then start doing it, it’s hard to justify asking for more time when you’ve squandered so much,” said Aviles. “I really am concerned if we set this out six months, then in six months we’re going to come back we’re not going to have the compliance that we hoped for.”
Aviles said the Times has tried to work with the county and sheriff’s department, including receiving summaries of some files. But she said the summaries are not enough because it’s unclear if deputies who have been disciplined remain employed by the county.
Beckloff adopted his tentative ruling and said the court could revise its enforcement authority in the next six months if the sheriff’s department continues to dole out records at the same rate.
“We are pleased that the court recognized the importance of prompt disclosure and the overwhelming failure of the sheriff’s department to disclose records relating to misconduct and serious uses of force over the past two and a half years,” Aviles said in an email.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department declined to comment on Friday’s ruling. LA County and the LA Times did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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