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Monday 17 July 2023

FBI opens criminal investigations into violent L.A. County deputy

encounters

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The related to the probes, ac- a woman to the ground by
FBI has opened criminal cording to an email ob- her neck last month in a
investigations into violent tained by the newspaper, grocery store parking lot af-
encounters involving Los the Los Angeles Times re- ter she started recording an
Angeles County sheriff’s ported Saturday. arrest with her cellphone.
deputies, including one in Department officials con- In addition to the federal
which a deputy punched a firmed the visit and told the investigations, the Califor-
woman in the face as she newspaper they planned nia Department of Justice
held her baby. to cooperate with investi- has agreed to review the
Federal authorities visited gators. case of 18-year-old Andres
the Los Angeles County The second case being Guardado, who was shot in
Sheriff’s Department head- scrutinized by the FBI in- the back three years ago
quarters to take documents volves a deputy who threw by a sheriff’s deputy in the

In this image taken from police body camera provided by Los
Angeles Sheriff’s office on June 24, 2023, a Sheriff’s deputies
arrested a couple in a grocery store parking lot in Lancaster,
Calif.
Associated Press
city of Gardena, south of rest the women on suspi-
Los Angeles, the email said. cion of felony child endan-
An FBI spokesperson would germent, and used force
not confirm that agents on two of the women when
were conducting a crimi- they resisted giving up their
nal investigation into either babies. The bulk of the vid-
incident. eo shows a tense conver-
The internal county email sation between a group of
obtained by the news- deputies and one woman
paper said that “federal who clutches her baby
criminal investigations have while sitting cross-legged
been opened concern- on the ground. The depu-
ing the recent incidents” in ties are heard saying that
Palmdale and Lancaster, the woman was riding in
north of Los Angeles. a car driven by someone
The Palmdale case in- without a valid license, and
volved a July 2022 traffic that her baby was not in a
stop but did not become car seat.
public until this week, when After several minutes of
Sheriff Robert Luna called back-and-forth, deputies
a news conference to re- pry the woman’s hands
lease body camera foot- apart, and she begins
age and announce that screaming as the child is
the deputy involved had removed from her arms.
been relieved of duty. Nearby, another woman
The eight-minute video holding a baby begins
was taken during the traffic screaming and cursing at
stop after Palmdale depu- officers before deputies an-
ties spotted a vehicle be- nounce they plan to arrest
ing driven at night without her too.
any headlights. When they As at least two deputies
pulled it over, the deputies hold the woman by her
smelled alcohol and saw wrists and arms, a third
four women inside, three male deputy can be seen
of them with babies in their throwing two punches to-
arms rather than in car ward her head while she is
seats, authorities said. still holding her baby.q
The deputies began to ar-