Are LA Sheriff's Deputies Harassing The Families Of People They Shoot And Kill?
One of the allegations claims the sister of 18-year-old Paul Rea, who was shot to death by deputies in June, was unnecessarily arrested during a Dia de los Muertos vigil and jailed overnight in East L.A.
incident is described in a Nov. 18 letter to the commission and district attorney Jackie Lacey sent by the ACLU, Black Lives Matter, and Centro Community Service Organization.
According to the letter, around 10:45 p.m., a deputy sheriff drove by the vigil slowly and "taunted Paul Rea's family and friends by making a rude hand gesture through the open window of his patrol car."
About a half hour later, "several patrol cars arrived at the memorial site, and deputy sheriffs proceeded to arrest two of Paul's friends," the letter says.
It claims that Rea's sister, Jaylene Rea, recorded the arrests with her cell phone, and when one of the friends who was getting handcuffed handed her a blunt (a hollowed out cigar filled with marijuana), she too was arrested.
"Immediately and without warning, the third deputy sheriff, who was approximately 6 feet tall and weighed approximately 200 pounds, walked up behind Jaylene, who is just under 5 feet tall, grabbed her wrists and bent her arms upward behind her back, causing her to yell in pain and bend over to alleviate the tension on her arms," the letter says.
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"THEY GLARE AT US, THEY UNCLIP THEIR HOLSTERS"
Lisa Vargas, the mother of Anthony Vargas, a 22-year-old fatally shot August 12, 2018, told commissioners earlier this year that deputies have been "intimidating my family left and right."
She said deputies followed her niece "from East L.A. all the way down to the Compton area." Her niece ended up getting off the freeway and going into a Walmart, Vargas said.
Other members of the Vargas family told KPCC/LAist on Saturday that they had been harassed at Sheriff Alex Villanueva's town halls as they sat holding protest signs with photos of Anthony.
"They stand alongside us, they glare at us, they unclip their holsters," said Stephanie Luna, Anthony's aunt. She said family members were denied entry to a town hall in Altadena because deputies demanded they show identification with a zip code from that area.
https://laist.com/2019/11/19/are_la_sheriffs_deputies_harassing_the_families_of_people_they_shoot_and_kill.php
“It’s like torture’: Families report deputy harassment to sheriff watchdog
One after the other, grieving relatives stood before the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Payment on Tuesday and described the harassment they mentioned they’ve confronted since their cherished ones had been killed by Los Angeles County deputies.
Infrequently, audio system mentioned, deputies slowly force by their properties at some stage in family gatherings. They showed up at one man’s funeral and, in a single other incident, pulled over his relative’s vehicle, commissioners heard.
“It’s fancy torture so that you can abet riding by us, and laughing or smirking or flicking us off and all that each likelihood y’all procure,” mentioned Davielle Johnson, the feminine friend of Ryan Twyman, 24, who used to be shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies at a South Los Angeles condominium advanced in early June.
After the testimony, the associated fee directed the Enviornment of work of the Inspector Peculiar to see whether or now now not patrol workers are harassing households of folks killed by deputies. It also requested that the Sheriff’s Division behavior its accept as true with investigation into behavior at the East L.A. and Century stations. Commissioners requested for experiences support in 60 days.
“They truly feel intimidated,” mentioned fee Chairwoman Patti Giggans. “It’s a scenario that we in fact wish to study up on into severely.”
https://headlinezpro.com/its-like-torture-families-report-deputy-harassment-to-sheriff-watchdog/
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