Fri 5 Oct 2007
Sheriff’s Department’s Arrest Contests to be Investigated
Posted by admin under County of LA , Crime
http://westranchbeacon.com/blog/2007/10/05/sheriffs-departments-arrest-contests-to-be-investigated/
The Los Angeles County public defender’s office on Thursday launched an investigation into arrests made two months ago by sheriff’s deputies participating in a five-city competition to book as many suspects as possible during a 24-hour period reports the Los Angeles Times.
Public Defender Michael P. Judge said his office would review all the arrests made Aug. 15 — the day of one of the competitions — and challenge the merits of the cases in court.
“Our contention is that the activities of the deputies may not have been prompted by what they saw but rather by the pressure of producing greater arrest numbers for the competition,” Judge said.
The competition in question was dubbed “Operation Any Booking” and was initiated by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant who said he wanted to increase the productivity and boost the morale of some deputies in the Lakewood station, which serves the southeast Los Angeles County cities of Lakewood, Bellflower, Paramount, Artesia and Hawaiian Gardens.
The deputies making the most arrests in those cities won “bragging rights,” Lt. James Tatreau told The Times earlier this week.
Tatreau said he helped organize that and other monthly competitions, including a contest to see how many vehicles deputies could impound in a single night, as well as how many “field interviews” of gang members and other suspected criminals deputies could conduct during a 24-hour period.
Sheriff Lee Baca called for an end to the competitions after learning about them from Times reporters Wednesday. A spokesman for Baca said Thursday that the sheriff was not concerned about the public defender’s inquiry.
Read it here: Sheriff’s Arrest Contest