>>173174
cont...
When President Trump toured the Palisades devastation to engage federal leadership on disaster response, Luna, the head of the largest Sheriff’s Department in the country, was missing in action, forfeiting an opportunity to advocate for his community and underscore the department’s role in recovery, highlighting a pattern of weak, performative leadership amid crisis rather than bold, accountable command.
Perhaps most corrosive has been Luna’s treatment of his own deputies. The prosecution of Deputy Trevor Kirk stands as a stark example. In 2023, Kirk followed department policy during a volatile arrest outside a grocery store. Rather than defend his deputy pending investigation, Luna publicly condemned the conduct as “disturbing,” appeasing activist pressure before facts were established.
Kirk was convicted on February 6, 2025, for deploying pepper spray, a Category 1 use of force, on a robbery suspect actively resisting arrest, a decision the jury ultimately labeled “excessive and unconstitutional.” The ruling set a dangerous precedent, effectively criminalizing split-second judgment calls that officers are forced to make in volatile, real-world encounters. This is precisely the kind of prosecutorial overreach that should have prompted the sheriff’s office to vigorously defend its deputies. Instead, under Luna, the department did the opposite: Kirk was handed over to federal authorities, LASD was directed to fully cooperate with investigators, and one of its own deputies was sacrificed to secure a conviction, punished not for misconduct, but for doing his job in an activist-driven political climate.
In July, three veteran members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Arson and Explosives Detail were killed during a training exercise at an East Los Angeles facility when a grenade believed to be inert detonated. In the aftermath, the department failed to conduct a rigorous follow-up investigation to locate a second grenade tied to the incident, an omission that left an unresolved public safety risk for months. Shortly before Christmas, new information regarding the whereabouts of that second grenade and how it was ultimately disposed of was provided to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigators, placing the case on a new investigative trajectory after nearly five months of stagnation. Notably, this information originated from sources inside the department but reached federal authorities only after an independent investigation forced it into the open.
cont...