LASD fails to be transparent about role in police response to encampment
A letter stating that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department did not send officers to the UCLA campus during last spring’s encampment is layered over a collage of photos showing LASD officers on campus. LASD did in fact send officers to campus to assist with protest policing, a senior officer said. (Photos by Nicolas Greamo/Daily Bruin senior staff and Zimo Li/Photo editor. Photo illustration by Lindsey Murto/Design director)
By Dylan Winward
Feb. 23, 2025 11:17 p.m.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it sent two squads to back up police who cleared last spring’s Palestine solidarity encampment – but only after an acting captain told the Daily Bruin it hadn’t participated at all.
As part of an investigation into protest arrests last spring, The Bruin requested information from multiple California law enforcement agencies. The California Public Records Act requires agencies to provide records in the public interest. The LAPD, California Highway Patrol, the Beverly Hills Police Department and the Culver City Police Department disclosed in detail their agencies’ involvement to The Bruin.
[Related: UCLA’s contracts with CHP, LAPD reveal costs associated with police on campus]
LA Mayor Karen Bass, UCPD and multiple Daily Bruin photographs confirmed that LASD participated in the police response to the encampment. However, LASD delayed, denied and refused to disclose how many hours it had spent at UCLA, despite repeated requests. Then, despite evidence on the contrary, they told The Bruin they weren’t there.
“LASD deputies were not involved in the UCLA event,” said Julia Valdes, acting captain of the department’s risk management bureau, in a February response to The Bruin’s request.
Mike Hiestand, the senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, said in a written statement that LASD’s response was concerning to him.
“You have over 30 photos, lots of witnesses and other credible evidence showing that the Sheriff’s Department either have no clue what their deputies are up to or are illegally lying through their teeth,” he said.
Thomas Giandomenico, LASD’s acting chief of the special operations division, attributed the discrepancy in his department’s statements to “misinterpretation.” LASD officers had been present at the police department’s staging area, provided backup and transported arrestees using two prison buses after receiving a mutual aid request from UCPD, he said Thursday.
Organizations including UC Divest Coalition and Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA began a protest encampment April 25, calling for the University to divest from companies associated with the Israeli military and to reduce policing on campus. Counter-protesters attacked the encampment on the night of April 30 and police took hours to intervene.
UCPD, in collaboration with other local and state police agencies, swept the encampment May 2, arresting hundreds of protesters.
[Related: Hundreds of protesters detained after police breach pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA]
The California Public Records Act specifies that any documents or records – whatever format they are in – that relate to public business must be shared in response to a request, unless there are privacy or public safety concerns with sharing them, according to the State of California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training website.
LASD did not cite privacy or public safety concerns when it responded to the Daily Bruin’s May request. Public records laws rely on government agencies being honest and transparent about what they do, Hiestand said in the written statement.
“California’s open records law depends on government officials acting with integrity and responding truthfully to legitimate public requests for public documents,” he said in the statement.
