Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva introduced Tuesday his division is focusing on a Instances journalist in a legal leak investigation for her reporting on the division’s cover-up of an incident by which a deputy kneeled on the top of a handcuffed inmate for 3 minutes.
The sheriff’s assault on reporter Alene Tchekmedyian throughout a information convention drew fast condemnation from the newspaper.
“His try and criminalize information reporting goes towards well-established constitutional legislation,” stated Kevin Merida, govt editor of The Instances, in a press release. “We are going to vigorously defend Tchekmedyian’s and the Los Angeles Instances’ rights in any continuing or investigation introduced by authorities.”
Supervisor Hilda Solis, who together with different supervisors has clashed with the sheriff repeatedly, stated in a press release that she would ask California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to “examine his sample of unconscionable and harmful actions just like the one at this time.”
“Sadly, Sheriff Villanueva has a behavior of attacking, maligning, and threatening those that oversee or report on his misconduct,” Solis stated.
The Instances revealed a report final month that described how Sheriff’s Division officers labored to cowl up the March 2021 incident as a result of they feared it will paint the division in a “adverse mild.” The Instances report was accompanied by surveillance video from a lock-up space of the San Fernando Courthouse that captured the deputy kneeling on the inmate’s head after handcuffing him.
Earlier this week, the newspaper and different shops reported on a authorized declare by which a division commander alleged that Villanueva participated within the cover-up, telling underlings, “We don't want unhealthy media at the moment.”
Villanueva has denied being concerned within the cover-up, saying he discovered of the violent detention eight months after it occurred and instantly launched an investigation into it.
Within the wake of the reviews on the commander’s claims, Villanueva summoned the media to the Corridor of Justice downtown and revealed the legal probe into how The Instances obtained the video of the detention.
With Tchekmedyian wanting on, Villanueva displayed a poster with giant pictures of her and two of his longtime foes, political rival Eli Vera and sheriff’s Inspector Common Max Huntsman. Arrows pointed from Vera to Huntsman to Tchekmedyian, implying the 2 males had been concerned in offering the video to the reporter. Villanueva additionally exhibited a listing of attainable felonies underneath investigation, together with conspiracy, housebreaking and unauthorized use of a database.
“That is stolen property that was eliminated illegally from individuals who had some intent — legal intent — and it’ll be topic to investigation,” Villanueva stated. When pressed whether or not he was investigating the journalist particularly, the sheriff stated, “All events to the act are topics of the investigation.”
Eli Vera, a former top-ranking division official who's working to unseat Villanueva, has stated publicly that the sheriff was concerned within the resolution to cowl up the violent detention and had seen the video at an aide’s desk inside days after it occurred.
Huntsman has introduced he's investigating the allegations Villanueva lied about his data of the incident and has issued a subpoena ordering Villanueva to both testify or flip over data .
David Loy, authorized director on the nonprofit First Modification Coalition, stated that Tchekmedyian’s reporting was “a topic of public concern that the press has an absolute proper if not an obligation to report on.”
Villanueva termed the video stolen property, however Loy stated if the reporter was given a replica of the video and reported on it, that will be “precisely what the 1st Modification provides the press a proper to do.”
“I’m flabbergasted at some degree, as a result of what the sheriff is doing displays a elementary misunderstanding of fundamental 1st Modification legislation. This has been settled for many years,” Loy stated, including that he suspected Villanueva’s actual purpose was to “intimidate the press from reporting critically upon the actions of the Sheriff’s Division.”
Villanueva has stated he respects the work of the media, however has made a behavior of going after a few of the journalists who cowl him. In 2020, KPCC reporter Josie Huang was slammed to the bottom by two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and arrested. Within the days after the incident, Villanueva advised the Related Press that Huang had “crossed the road from journalism to activism” and defended his deputies’ actions. The case towards Huang was later dropped.
The broadsides have elevated as he runs for a second time period. After Instances columnist Gustavo Arellano mocked his resolution final fall to let deputies to put on cowboy hats, Villanueva referred to as him a “vendido” — a sellout — on his weekly Fb livestream. This spring, he used the identical discussion board to go after the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial author, Robert Greene, after a gathering by which Villanueva made a weird accusation that Huntsman was a Holocaust denier.
Tchekmedyian, who has coated the Sheriff’s Division for many of Villanueva’s tenure, has been a frequent goal of his anger.
Villanueva for months has refused to talk with Tchekmedyian, ignoring her frequent interview requests and the questions she submits for his weekly Fb broadcasts.
She and different Instances reporters have doggedly coated the sheriff and the division, together with tales concerning the sheriff’s efforts to rehire former deputies with checkered pasts, Villanueva’s involvement within the effort to cowl up the truth that deputies had shared pictures from the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash scene, and a secretive unit the sheriff fashioned that investigates his political foes and critics.
Whereas she was reporting the story concerning the secret unit, a spokesman for the division advised The Instances that sheriff’s officers wouldn't focus on the matter with Tchekmedyian, claiming she had a battle of curiosity. The spokesman repeatedly refused to offer any particulars of the alleged battle to a Instances editor. The division instructed it will reply questions from “every other” Instances reporter. The Instances declined to assign a brand new reporter to the story.
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