Hey, repeat listener, you are about to hear the fifth episode in this six part series. I highly encourage you to listen in order. So if you've missed one of our 1st 4 episodes, I suggest you stop listening to this one and go back and get caught up. Thanks for listening. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Coburg says he knows how to catch guys with guns. He's proud of it.
So that was our thing. And for a while, the department really like this, taking guns off the streets. It's good for, you know, the Oh, sorry, it's loud.
Coburg tonight talked outside a Starbucks and unincorporated East L. A. What's known as a busy patrol area. We kept getting interrupted by sirens.
You know, your violent gangs are, you know, the neighborhoods and whose warring and shooting at each other. So you focus your time and energy in those areas doing traffic stops. Informants. You read the graffiti, you know, and it's really not that hard to figure out who's battling who. And then you just start making your context contacting, contacting, You know, eventually you're gonna run into somebody's carrying a gun, doesn't want to go Joe. So they run. They tossed
the gun that they take off in the car. You know, they fight you for it, Whatever. Whatever the case is,
Kobrick said he worked hard, won a spot on the department's elite gang unit. He did what he was asked to Dio, and he was asked to get criminals and guns off the street. He loved it the way you love something you feel good at, but he had to stop, he said. It wasn't his choice. It was his department's. He got benched
Right now. They don't want guys out there chasing down bad guys because of the force or potential shooting. Or, you know, black lives matter who, God forbid, a white cop shoots a black guy. They're more worried about the fallout of, you know, a racial issue or a political issue rather than serving community that needs help.
You think that was part of it?
Yeah, I've been in four shootings. Do I think that was part of it? Yes, no. So again, they just want guys because my partner and I developed a skill of finding the worst of the worst, were just really good at it and the potential of us to get in a another shooting. It was probably I don't want to say hi because you don't go in the streets looking again. She That's the last thing you want to go home to your kids. But when you're finding guys with guns, I don't want to go home, so I don't care.
And so they didn't want that PR battle, which I get on the business side of things. Do you think that happening? It is. It is happening, all of them
you're listening to repeat, I'm Annie Gilbertson. This is Episode five shit magnets Cover told me, Quote. I've been called a shit magnet my entire career. It's the type of proactive officer that makes more arrests, finds more guns, catches more gang members. It's always been a compliment, he said, and in co breaks case, he's also shot more people. Most officers go their entire careers without getting into a shooting. Coburg has had four shootings.
I wanted to talk to a deputy with multiple shootings, and Deputy Gonzalo Inzunza didn't want to talk to me, Coburg did. I asked him to tell me about his experience working the streets.
I mean with police work, especially in L. A county, especially in these faster cities. Use of force is an everyday occurrence for just a station. In general, everybody thinks that cops are heavy handed. But really, we're not. I mean, seems like we use way less force than what's actually needed in most cases way should people should be looking at these bad guys terrorizing these towns. They should want guys like me who will walk in a dark alley and confront this bad guy face to face.
But just know that I'm doing it for the right reasons. And I mean, do it legally.
Yeah, I think the deep side is that for too long officers were too aggressive on these communities, often communities of black and brown people on. And so so, yeah, it seems like it seems like a lot of the pressure shoe be less aggressive is coming from that
viewpoint. Yeah. I mean, there's always room for improvement when it comes. The tactics are physical aggression, and in some cities there is. I mean, if you have ah, city that is low has a lower crime rate, the forces, and there's almost no force. But when you're in a city where these gang members are terrorizing people, they don't live by a force policy. You know, I gotta tell you, it's hard for me to think of a time where I thought it deputy went too far.
There's times where I'm like all right, we're good, We're good but custom when we're done, you know, because if there is a human emotion into it, But I can't think of a point where they were just beating somebody up just to beat him up.
Then Coburn's life changed. E. I told you he'd been pulled out sidelined. It happened when he caught a case that's Deputy Speak for going under internal review being investigated by your own department, something you've done has raised a flag at work. Colbert came under investigation after doing some side work off duty and 2015 you're supposed to tell the department if you work side jobs. According to Internal affairs records provided by Coburg, he did not.
He was working a surveillance gig up in Ventura County. He was sitting in a car outside a house. Someone reported a suspicious vehicle. Local Ventura County sheriff's deputies were called out, and there was an argument. Deputy versus Deputy Been sure, sheriff's officials complained, contacted the L. A County sheriff's.
Anyways, they flexed on me. They called and told my lieutenant, my lieutenant contact my sergeant. My starting asked me about it.
Eventually, the case landed on the desk of Internal Affairs, which, according to the records Coburg gave me, found Coburg had broken rules by acting as a private detective rules about professional conduct outside employment and unnecessary interference, the report noted. He had been disciplined twice before. This time his judgment was called into question. Colbert thinks it was a non issue that really the department no longer wanted his aggressive approach to the job
and that this was the paper trail they needed. Who's put inside?
They did a lot of bad stuff to me. When they pulled me out of the field, they knew I was going through a divorce. They pulled me out of the field, took my take home car, told me I wasn't allowed to work overtime, and they made me drive to Inglewood every day, 46 hours a day in the middle of traffic for eight or nine months. I mean, it was pulling my hair out.
I've heard of using traffic as a punishment for officers. It's a thing in L. A. It's called freeway therapy. Well, kind of work. Did you have
to be? Oh, I was entering information into one of our systems where we track, you know, if I cards stuff tedious and it's, you know, yeah, but they try to write me up cause led 20 in a month and I'm like 20 AM Like I took a couple days off and then I clean their entire arm, rail washed clean like 300 guns. You know, the old joke, the marine peeling potatoes, you know, they were just give me they're trying to break.
According to records, Coburg was still being paid as a deputy around $100,000 in 2015. The shares department would not talk to me about Colbert's complaints, said that what they could say was limited because officer personnel files are private. Coburg returned to the field for a stent, but then was transferred off the gang unit ousted from the job.
He loved the reason for the transfer. Coburg Satya captain told him he had too many shootings in 2012 Coburg confronted a man he's suspected of drug possession. A struggle ensued. According to D. A records. The man bit Coburg on the thigh and reached for his gun. Coburg shot him twice in the head. Then two years later, Colbert confronted an armed man suspected of shooting someone. Earlier that day, the suspect fired a Coburg and other officers. The suspect shielded himself behind his
own baby boy. Eventually the suspect released the boy. Coburg and the other deputies finally fired back. The suspect was shot. The baby was not harmed. Coburn was awarded a medal of Valor. Despite the award, Colbert told me the department decided he could no longer have contact with the public. He was assigned to logistics.
I'm helping with Equipment way outside of what I was paid to do. I mean, I'm washing trucks. My career went from gang unit for the largest sheriff's department in the world. In Compton, South Central. The washing trucks, it's It's a joke.
I asked the sheriff about assigning deputies this type of work. L. A County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said they do not give deputies work outside the scope of an officer's responsibilities. When I told this to Coburg. He sent me a cell phone video of him walking into a long shipping container cluttered with sagging cardboard boxes in a tangle of equipment.
And I've been assigned to go through and clean it and get inventory of all this gear, and it's a ton of gear that need to be inventoried. I think my life, this is what I do.
The thing that struck Hobart that infuriates him now is that if all this was really about how he handled himself in the field and his shootings, Kobrick said, it seemed unfair. He told me I didn't have any shady shootings. All my stuff was legit. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office agreed, found all his shootings to be within the law. When it comes to shootings, the law gives officers lots
of leeway wide latitude. If an officer fears for his safety or the safety of others, the shooting is often found to be legal. It's one of the reasons why officers are not prosecuted even when they shoot unarmed people.
There are so called awful, but lawful shootings and in those consequences are not coming in the form of criminal charges, consequences, decisions about officers who are getting into questionable shootings or violated policy or multiple shootings are in the hands of their department. And Colbert told me the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is handling these things differently these days.
The sheriff's department is a political organization. Okay, um, the facade is deputies in the streets doing police work. Oh, we're just Oh, it's just the deputies doing their job where there's so much behind the scenes that are going on politically and so that's how we're used. So as the political agendas change, they'll come at us officers differently. So what? One year was amazing. Police were, you know, getting guns off the streets.
You know, you get your occasional fight and where the next year, if you do that same exact thing under the same exact circumstances, you could potentially be fired, are relieved of duty or taking out of the streets pending investigation or days taking off out of your pay, you know, for something that you've done 10 times before that. So they pick and choose when they want to use these things. Oh, that one went to the media. I guess we better give him 10 days off no pay. Well, that one
didn't go to the media, so they're fine. Nobody knows about.
I've heard opposing ideas of what to do with deputies who get into multiple shootings. The crux of it lies and how you view police shootings. Generally, do you accept that some officer shootings are inevitable? That shootings are more prevalent among deputies who get dangerous assignments? That is part of the duty something no officer wants to dio. But every officer must be ready to dio. Or do you believe that multiple shootings should be considered together?
The difference between looking at the lawfulness of one shooting an individual unique snowflake versus looking at the accumulation of snow. And if you believe they can be connected to the decision making by the deputy to the training and tone and priorities of the department, do you take stock? Do you act and remove a deputy who's shooting again and again bench them? According to a handful of former and current department employees, officers themselves are divided on this issue.
I asked John, Fred and all about this, the homicide sergeant who investigated the shooting of 10 L. Billups deputy Gonzalo Inzunza, his second shooting bread and all told me. I think it's a travesty if you take a hardworking deputy out of the streets and bench them. Brendel says It's an officer's responsibility to arrest criminals. It's a job that requires they get into stuff, he said.
There are shit magnets. It's difficult. Friend all told me to explain to the public I'm gonna try anyway after this break. I recently found myself in Ontario San Bernadino County, east of L. A. It's where many people have escaped high housing prices. In l. A escaped to the desert. I pulled off the freeway and passed and in and out burger behind it lay Chris backdrop of the mountains, the Angeles National Forest. The purple silhouette of a giant sleeping on its back.
I pulled into the parking lot of an office building. I am what gave me what gave me away. Yeah, right. Second floor. Right. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. I was there to see Anthony for Llano of former deputy. Another repeat shooter, his shootings. They made the news. Yeah. Hey, so right by you from you did not see you did ok, Well, have you know I like I like to think I'm an observant person. Anti from Otto is retired now. Part of him is still no frills former deputy. He came to the interview
and flip flops and shorts. He likes 7 11 coffee. Best I have spoken to for Lana before off tape. That time he got pretty wound up talking about his patrol days. Not angry but not holding back any emotion, either. He dropped the occasional expletive. He described sheriff's leadership as being motivated by politics. As he put it, Quote, My dick is bigger than your deck. This time he's restrained. Languid. Maybe it's the microphone. Can you just, like, take like a five inch scoop? Okay, Um,
sorry, I don't talk to allowed. Sometimes
I think you're good, I think, just like just for Lana joined the sheriff's department in 1994 the job could be demanding. He missed birthdays, holidays, special events, Sundays with his kids. And it could be gruesome. According to records, he once saw a child whose head was severed into pieces in a car crash for Lana train for patrol at Century Station. He told me I had no idea how violent the world waas you don't realize how evil people are for Lana. Went to work in Compton, then the east L.
A station. Do you feel like, uh, you encountered more guns and most many other law enforcement
officers? Um, my perception is yes. Like, I can't even count how many guns that have taken off the street. Hundreds. There would be some individuals you'd find two or three guns on. You know, you don't know,
like in our car.
Oh, on their person in their car?
Yeah, guns heading anywhere.
Yeah, but then the same. There's the guys that you work with, it that find dope all the time. You're like, how did they find dope all the time? It just happens that way. The guy that's always finding a stolen car, you know, it was somebody in it. And there in pursuit. It's like this guy gets stolen cars, like almost all the time. It seemed it just works out that way. It's, I don't know, this no rhyme or reason to it just, uh it happens
the first time we talked for a lot of put it this way. Quote. I happen to be a shit magnet with guns. There's another way to look at shit magnets, that dangerous encounters. And by extension, the shootings that might result are not so much dictated by the deputy nor by the department, but by the actions of the suspects. One department employees explained it to me as Call a good luck. Call it bad luck. It happens that is, should happens on since you can't always control what's around you. Well,
for Lana describes these interactions as though fate had intervened. Misfortune.
You don't want toe hurt anybody or kill anybody. But it's unfortunate whoever it is that you stop or come across that they're going to dictate how the rest of the the stock goes if they become violent and it ends up becoming violent. If they're cooperative, it's cooperative. Uh
huh. Talk to me about, um, the most recent, um, shooting incident. You're a part of what happened that day.
That night I was working overtime in East Los Angeles, and there was, ah, call of a female screaming.
Solano and his partner responded. According to D A records, a witness told them he had seen a young Latino man riding a skateboard with a gun. Vermont ominous partner found a man that fit the description for Alana noticed a dark object in his hand, which he later realized was a cell phone. He ordered the suspect to stop drop what was in his hands, according to the D A record. The suspect ignored the commands
and continued to approach. A struggle ensued for Llano called it a stand up wrestling match.
I was holding one wrist and my partner was holding the other risk trying toe get him on the ground and had cuff him. And as his hands brushed over his pocket, you could feel the silhouette of a gun inside of his pocket. And he was able to get in his pocket. And that's when he produced the handgun. He pulled it out of his pocket.
Romano had his own weapon raised.
Why is he doing this? Why is he not saying anything to us? Why is he forcing me? You know, into the situation.
According to D, A records for Leno shot the suspect ran away. The partner deputy said the suspect reached towards his pocket and he shot to the man, died for Lana, told me he was devastated. He thought faq why me? Why me again?
he dictated what what occurred. So now I have to live with it.
Questions about the shooting were to be expected. This was not for Llanos first shooting. This was his seventh. But this time for Leno said, was different
by far. Is way different is very political.
A man named Michael Janak. Oh, got involved. It was 2013 at the time. Janaka headed the Office of Independent Review. It was his job to scrutinize Los Angeles County Deputy activity, the department's practices. So what's your your attention to this one particular deputy and his record?
Ah, well, clearly, the number of shootings that the deputy had been involved in um caused him to be an outlier, as we learned. Um, most officers who are out on patrol do not get in in any officer involved shootings during their careers, Um, or one at most.
So does it raise red flags when a deputy has 23 more than three officer involved shootings. It
raises all kinds of flags. Um, even if in isolation, each shooting is quote justified under the law. Um, it does call into question decision making by the
deputy for Janak. Oh, it was not always about chance, not always about fate. It was about choices, the choices of the deputy, the choices of the department, Janaka found. The department returned for Lana to the field after his first and second and his third and fourth and his fifth and six shootings. This after the department had found issues with his six shooting, according to court records.
The six shooting was in 2011 for Lana was chasing a suspected stolen vehicle and fired several times at the driver, according to district attorney records for Lana said the driver had a handgun. Investigators did not find a gun for. Llano declined to speak with me about this incident, citing pending litigation brought by the driver, according to a lawsuit. Records for Llano fired out the
car window across his partner's body, records said. He was disciplined for that, for Llano was assigned desk duty, according to a civil complaint he later filed. He didn't stay there, according to Janak. Oh, and for Llano, for Llano petitioned higher ups asked to go back out on duty. It had been more than two years since his last shooting for Llano got his wish. Lana told me within a couple weeks of returning to the field, he was in his seventh shooting. Do you think that it was So was it that
you know the leaders of the department? Um, basically, you know, they didn't have a system and process, so they weren't aware of of multiple shootings. Or do you think that there were reluctant to pull a deputy from from the field?
There is always going to be a reluctance to move a deputy from a patrol assignment, and it has to be done thoughtfully. And it has to be. You know, it has to be done based on evidence and concern and risk management issues, potential liability. It is not a decision that should be lightly made.
The pieces together can tell a story. Janaka says it could show the officer may be more sensitive to potential danger. They may be perceiving threat when there's not one a jumpy deputy or they could be too aggressive. Janak Oh, said an officer. Maybe putting themselves in harm's way,
they get into deep. They do not perform consistent with principles of officer safety, and then they are find themselves in a situation or situations where they then feel the need toe use deadly force to shoot themselves out of harm's way.
It can be the difference between taking cover and closing in keeping options open or limiting them and their consequences for failing to recognize or even consider that there may be patterns.
Well, the concern with returning a deputy to the field who's not ready is obviously it may increase the chance that there could be another deadly force incident. Obviously, that's the ultimate concern.
More shootings can mean more lawsuits and MAWR $1,000,000 settlements. So cutting back that's risk management life and death kind. So when Janaka notice for Llano, he made a lot of hay. He wrote a letter to county officials. That's when for Llano Story hit the news.
Seven shootings, all linked toe. One Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy and the deputy had been assigned to desk duty in East L. A. After shooting number six in 2011. Remove
emotions ran high when the oh leave, a family came face to face with sheriff's deputies in the East l. A. Sheriff's station tonight. The Sheriff's department was under pressure around this time. 2013 the department was still under heat for the jail scandal a couple years before the allegations of deputies using excessive force and the department's responsibility to correct behaviour. Falling short. The sheriff at the time, Lee Baca, was under pressure to step down
for Llano describes it like a storm and hit. He found himself pulled into the eye of it.
They put me inside. They wouldn't allow me to wear uniform. Being a black and white around a black and white. They wanted me to goto work, custody or courts, which I didn't want to work either one after the shooting. So So then what were
you Um what kind of tasks were you assigned right in this new job they were trying to place you just I can get a sense of like, you
know, well, at first when they benched me, I was still accomplish Borough. And like I said, I wasn't allowed to wear uniforms. So I stayed in the office all day. I had to keep busy. I was told, do paperwork and paperwork only takes so long to do. And then I was told like Well, you know, it was a small building there in Lakewood County building and clean up outside or sweeper mop, but cut the hallways or clean the bathrooms or something. All this menial work,
which is, is fine and dandy. If your home was a little degrading amongst your peers when you work so hard, we've had so much training
records show for Alana was still being paid. Is the deputy around $100,000 per year? The D A. Reviewed the shooting said it was within the law. Same is the six. Before the department still had to complete its internal affairs review for Llano, Felt persecuted fell. The department headed out for him, wanted to fire him. It struck me Many people. I have talked to question the level of scrutiny given to officer shootings, the practice of law enforcement investigating their own.
These officers felt intensely scrutinized, saw a department with the power to put moments of their lives under a microscope, make decisions that could alter their future. And the process this time didn't sit well with for Llano. According to for Llano into other sources, there were murmurings inside the department murmurings that the gun had been planted to justify the shooting.
The deputies deny this d A record, said the gun was found at the scene, these sources as not to be named because they still work for the department and they fear retaliation. Falana said in court papers that he had to submit to a DNA test. Investigators got a swab from the inside of his mouth, same as they do for those suspected of a crime, de records show. The test did not match either deputies DNA to the material on the gun. Other questions were raised. The family of the man for
Mono and his partner fatally shot Carlos Oliva. Sola claimed the shooting was unjustified. The family filed a civil rights lawsuit, a claim that included a slew of problems with the shooting. According to the lawsuit, the young man was beaten to the ground prior to being shot and at a point during the shooting was unarmed for Lana told me the suspect had dropped the gun at some point during the encounter, but deputies didn't realize that until after,
according to court records. Two years after Fillon owes last shooting, the department found he had used improper tactics. When I asked for a lot of about this, he told me his actions were within his training and experience that the finding was a pretext. According to court records, the department decided to fire him. The department settled the lawsuit with the family of the
skateboarder killed in 2015 according to the family's attorney, Dale Ghalib. Oh, he told me the department's public position on the shooting hadn't changed. Quote. They came up with a story that the kid had a gun. They were sticking to it. This attorney, he takes on a lot of these cases. Filippo is a big name for police shootings in California. He's skeptical of departments doing their own investigations into shootings,
and he's skeptical of the findings. He told me they do an investigation to make it look like they're investigating, he said. This case was memorable because after years of fighting, the department's lawyers abruptly decided to settle. A call came in. They wanted it settled. That week, he said, that speed was almost unheard off. The final settlement 2.5 $1,000,000 Globo told me, quote, something was up with that case. If the top brass wanted for Leno out, as he says,
they eventually got their wish. He left the department. In lieu of being fired, he medically retired. He got to keep his pension. According to Transparent California, which is based on public records. He's collected about $60,000 a year after retiring, reflecting back for Lan told me, Shootings are awful. You already feel bad, he said, and we get punished.
The Sheriff's department declined to comment about for Llano. In these incidents, they said, they're prohibited by law from disclosing information in an officer's personnel file information that might include investigations and discipline. Sheriff's officials did agree to talk to me about how they're handling officers with multiple shootings. So I asked them How many shootings are too many?
Yeah. Uh, well, generally, if you hit your third deputy involved Shooting triggers an automatic shooting review analysis.
This is Anthony Lubbers. He's the undersheriff, number two in command, he said. Yeah, the department is tracking. Repeat shooters now have been examining their cases. The accumulation of incidents they started in 2015
eso we looked at was the environment they're working in, what commonalities of these shootings. They went to some training that that have any actor in the second shooting or not, and then we'll make a recommendation as to what we take this best for the employees and the community. You know, we don't want toe have, ah, employees working in on in the community to where the committee feels unsafe around this individual. So that's
why we take a strong look at it. We look at the risk and viability that we expose the community to, as well as our own members.
And the birds said it doesn't always mean having to take a deputy out of the field. Sometimes what's needed is more training or a shift change
worked all shifts, I could tell you Working day shift. You know your activity is dramatically different. You're taking more reports. You're handling different types of calls. You may be hailing a call of a truancy. Ah, child nickel act on issue at a school on
day shift a burger. Reports of people wake up in the morning, find a car was burglarized on then, as you get later in the day in the P M shift, and then more and more people are out and about, and the criminal element may be drinking more and now starting to get out and do their thing. You know, the drug dealers come out now, start coming out in the evening and then all the way in the early morning shift. I would spend a lot of time on early morning, which is your midnight shift.
And that's where you found your shootings in your stabbings, in your robberies, going on in the night time. So those encounters in those type of activities were much greater working those night time shift,
according to D A records, both Coburg and for Llanos. Most recent shootings were at night Coburg sometime after 10 p.m. for llanos after 1 a.m. Not everyone thinks the sheriff's department is changing for the better. The officers I talked to say the potential internal affairs cases or being pulled from the field is creating a chilling effect that deputies are reluctant to go into that alley to run after the suspected bad guy for fear of punishment for what they see as good and necessary.
Police work a za messy as it can get. It's difficult to check the chilling effect claim. Arrests have been going down for years at the L. A County Sheriff's Department, and they say the new climate that rolled in with the new sheriff Jim McDonnell. So I went down to the Hall of Justice toe. Ask the sheriff about it by. I have an appointment here. You know, I am a fish. An appointment with the sheriff.
McDonald's spent decades in law enforcement at the LAPD. Then he went on to be the chief of Long Beach PD Onley toe watch. As the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jail scandal called into question the integrity of the officer's badge, MacDonald had a front row seat to what had gone wrong at the sheriff's department. He worked alongside Miriam Krinsky, sat on the Citizens Commission on Jail Violence CC JV heard all about reports found shoved into drawers,
and MacDonald thought he could do better. So he ran to be the next sheriff of Los Angeles County. You
know, the term I used at the time was to restore the luster to the badge. Ah, I believe that now, in little over three years that we have been successful in in, uh, going a long way toward doing that. Ah, you know, people
often ask, isn't officers were being held accountable?
They think there were some in the organization that were not being held accountable appropriately and that, um, did things they they certainly should not have done. And I think the indictments we saw showed the extreme on that continue. But the vast majority of members of the organization are doing a very difficult, complex and dangerous job exceptionally well every day.
Those indictments included former Sheriff Lee Baca and more than 20 other department employees. I mean, not all said under his leadership officer shootings have gone down. According to department records. In the five years prior to 2015 McDonald's first year in office, the L A County Sheriff's Department average 41 shootings a year. In 2017 the number was eight. And so we have
dramatically reduced shootings and continue to do so. However, we don't decide, um, on the number of shootings, we respond to radio calls to situations in the field where we're confronted with issues that sometimes require a use of force, including deadly force. And that's the nature of the job.
We've also heard from deputies and from sheriff's personnel that, um, you know, under your leadership, your you're benching or reassigning deputies with multiple shootings. If What you say is the case that shootings are the fault of the suspects
or the circumstances. Then why pulling from the field? Well, we look at each one individually. We don't do that generically. We look at the merits we look at the, uh you know, the details of each use of force is significant use of force. We we tear these things apart down to a level where I think most people don't have an appreciation for that at all. We hold our people accountable to a very, very high degree.
There's a lot of people that depend on McDonald to get this right. The people of the county that felt the department needed to change. And his deputies he told me he sees it as his obligation to reduce force where possible. And I know he also needs the buy in from the men and women who work for him, not all of whom appreciate deputies being taken out of the field. You know, if they get reassigned, its assignments where they're doing data entry or they're mopping or washing buses, but
they're still making the salary is a deputy. So I guess what I'm saying is
that way. Don't have people doing maintenance duties, or are the washing buses of those kind of things that were taken on the field for a use of force? We do. We take very seriously the value of each employee within the organization. We don't give them a demeaning job or a job that's not within the parameters of what a deputy sheriff should be
doing. You know, when I was reporting this story, I came off this turn. I came across this term and I heard from several Sheriff's Department of Blaze. And the term is shit magnets, um, of your that Yeah. McDonald. Grand amused. How are you separating? Sort of the troublemakers from, like, you know, the hard working Well,
that's what the investigations for we, as I mentioned, we tear them down. We look at him from every angle. We try and get to know everything we can about the individual, about the circumstances, about the way the use of force and the scenario played out. So it kind of
sounds like what you're saying is, is that in some ways it is the circumstances of what the deputy encountered in the field, but that there's also some responsibility from the sheriff's department. Do as you say, mitigate risk or potential the potential for more shootings where possible? Absolutely Both our troops
were both are true,
absolutely, and the department seems to be tracking deputies with repeat shootings. There's a list. The list includes the deputies, most recent shooting and whether they had been in a previous shooting and if so, how many? My colleague data reporter Erin Mendelson found it on a county website. The thing is, the list is anonymous. You don't get the officer's name. Erin found the names anyway, cross referencing the shooting dates
with district attorney records. It was a big undertaking, so we focused on deputies who got into shootings after 2010 anytime they hit someone or shot and missed, we found more than 30 Los Angeles County sheriff's officers who shot at least three times its officers like Deputy Michael, maybe who shot a three people, one of them reported as unarmed, and deputy Rodolfo Santana, who had five shootings at least twice, striking unarmed suspects.
Deputy Coburg, who you met is on there, so it's for Llano and deputy Gonzalo Inzunza. We asked the department how many had been benched. They didn't tell us, and we found this. One group of officers, the so called outliers, were responsible for an outsize share of shootings and L a county. Over the course of their careers, these officers use deadly force at least 136 times. Even when a fatal shooting is found to be justified.
The family, the community must still grapple with the loss of life anti for, Lana says That's true for deputies to. On one hand, he didn't like being benched. You filed a lawsuit claiming the department was discriminating against him. According to court records. Falana said supervisors told him he was too old for patrol. He was 50. The department denied wrongdoing. The case settled for about $40,000. On the other hand, for Lana also says the shootings have affected him.
He filed several worker's comp claims when he was at the sheriff's department, according to records for Lana was experiencing extreme feelings. He didn't think he could go back to law enforcement. That was too emotional, that after years as a deputy, he had PTSD from the shootings. He didn't want to talk to me about this much except to say
you go see a psychologist for the shooting, talk to them for about an hour. That's no another area that the department fails in, Uh, you know, just going to talk to someone for an hour after having to go through, Ah, deadly situation like that, you know, And very, very unfortunate to take someone's life. And even when you they're the person does leave if you still go to that, but you're still having to deal with that in your head.
In your emotions, it's not something that your every a person has to go through. They should put a little more into it.
Do you ever use guns anymore? No, not even just like a shooting range. No desire is that because of the shootings
or because you're not interested? Uh, better. Both never really been into guns. And in the sound and the smell, everything brings back memories.
The year for Lana left the department 2015. It was tough for him. He was in a road rage incident, according to D A records. A man driving his son to school called 911 saying that for Llano had pointed a gun at him. Falana said no, that it was the other driver who pointed a gun at him. The d A. Decided not to prosecute. Two months later, court records show, for Alana was convicted for driving under the influence and Riverside County. He declined
to comment about this. I ask for Llano. Do you think he was unlucky that he had had seven shootings?
I was, I don't know. I'd say lucky, but unfortunate. It's still with me today. Nightmares I cry about it messes with me emotionally. Sometimes I don't want to talk to people or be around people. It's ruined relationships. Yeah, so yeah. So if it's like this way now, pretty sure it's gonna be like this the rest of my life, you know, Till I could figure a way. Teoh deal with it.
How does how does it, like still manifest itself in your life now, like with what are you thinking? Or how does it come up
our sights or smells or, you know, something like said site, you know, vehicle. I'll see your you sound all hear loud noises, you know, startle very easily. Kind of takes you back to a situation whether it be a shooting that you were involved in or we're a shooting that you're at. And you know, there's somebody laying on the ground dying. You're the last person they talked to. Yeah, You don't forget those things.
It sounds kind of haunting.
Yeah, could be hunting. I guess you could say that. But yeah, it's definitely something that doesn't go away.
The few times I've talked to for Llano about his shootings, he shifted between formal use of force terminology and raw emotion like a leak slow and pungent from a tear in the flesh. Officers are trained to articulate use of force, but the emotional weight of it for Lana told me I still deal with it now. I don't sleep well. I cry. I'll shut down. He pulled up the collar of his great T shirt and covered his eyes. He held it there.
The room was silent. The conversation stopped. Then you released it. The neck of his shirt was wet. He seemed embarrassed. He told me you don't to be looked at as weak. Our final episode of repeat that's next week. Thanks for listening. To repeat from KPCC, our editor is Evelyne Leu. Rubia additional reporting from Aaron Mendelson. Production from James Kim. Tricia Tonko is our fact checker, and our designer is Katie Briggs. Our music was composed and performed by Andrew Ben.
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