LAPD lieutenant claims he raised the alarm about the gang unit’s “ghost stops.”

A Los Angeles police lieutenant has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming his superiors ignored his warnings about misconduct in an anti-gang unit until it became a public scandal, leading to his firing his.

The complaint, which usually serves as a precursor to a lawsuit, was brought this month by Lt. Mark Garza. It is the first litigation pursued by a former member of the Mission Division’s gang unit, whose officers were investigated last year over allegations they illegally stopped and searched vehicles and stole from the people they stopped.

Garza, who was in charge of the unit, said he reported his suspicion in June 2023 that some of his officers were conducting “ghost stops,” meaning their actions could go unnoticed because they did not document their encounters or turned the body. -worn or dashboard cameras and never informed the police of their whereabouts.

At the time, Garza said, the department’s body camera policy required supervisors to review only footage related to “complaints, use of force and chases.” Meanwhile, desk-level audits have been limited in scope, with only two videos per unit randomly reviewed every 30 days or so. Without more robust checks, the lieutenant argued, it was possible for his unit’s misconduct to fly under the radar.

While researching the issue, Garza said he learned that videos of officers breaking the rules were deliberately excluded from the audits — ensuring near-perfect results every time.

He said he learned that auditors in the department’s four geographic offices were ordered to exclude incomplete body camera video from their reviews — creating the potential for officers to intentionally delay turning on the cameras because they knew partial footage would be overlooked. . Gang officers also specifically told video checkers “not to identify problems,” he claimed.

Garza said an auditor told him: “We seek nothing but good things.”

Garza said he “believes he was set up to fail and then held accountable for the failure.” The department tried to “cover up its own flawed policies,” he claimed, and punished him in retaliation for pointing out those shortcomings as the scandal was becoming public.

The city attorney’s office did not respond to an email about the case sent Friday. An LAPD spokesman declined to comment. An attorney for Garza did not respond to questions.

The cloud over Garza’s unit first became public in August 2023, when The Times reported that internal affairs investigators took the rare step of obtaining a search warrant for officers’ lockers at the Mission Division station. Department officials said the FBI is also looking into the matter.

With his officers accused of breaking the law and trying to cover it up, Garza was released earlier this year. He he could be fired after a rights commission hearing in August next year. His former boss, Mission Capt. James “JT” Townsend, also faces firing, along with Sgt. David Gomez and several former gang officers.

One of the officers, Alan Carrillo, was criminally charged with stealing a knife and brass knuckles from drivers at separate stations in April and June 2023. He has pleaded not guilty and a preliminary hearing is set for next month.

Garza said he first noticed the questionable stops after someone complained that a Mission gang officer threw a cup of iced coffee at a teenager. Garza said he was told there was no recording of the encounter, but when he reviewed body camera footage from that day, he found video of a traffic stop that clearly showed a cup of coffee. As he continued to watch, he heard someone say, “You didn’t give me my ID back,” just before both officers turned off their cameras, according to the complaint.

The next day, Garza said, he reported the incident to Townsend, the division captain, who ordered him to remove the two officers from the field.

Although Garza was eventually placed on home leave and relieved of his badge and weapon, he said the senior officers involved were allowed to remain on the job, and several were promoted. One, he said, was Capt. Matthew Plugge, who was “even moved to a better position” while the investigation was ongoing.

“This is classic differential treatment,” the statement says.

The claim that LAPD command staff only respond to crises that publicly embarrass the department fits a widespread perception among front-line officers and mid-level supervisors, according to other recent lawsuits and public comments by police union officials.

Similar finger-pointing happened in the Rampart scandal, which erupted in 1998, when it was discredited on Det. Rafael Perez told internal investigators that he and fellow officers routinely planted evidence, shot some people without provocation and framed others for crimes they did not commit. Several sergeants later sued the city, saying they were forced to take the fall for the department’s wrongdoing.

In a subsequent controversy, members of the LAPD’s vaunted Metropolitan Division were accused of mislabeling people as gang members. One of the suspect officers claimed in a lawsuit that commanders have put in place for years a de facto quota system which rewarded police officers who identified and arrested alleged gang members and punished those who did not, creating an incentive for officers to make false charges.

In Garza’s case, he said that after discovering several “ghost stops,” he tried several times to discuss the issue with department superiors. Garza said in his statement that he was “surprised” by the dismissive response he received from his superiors, who took no immediate action.

He argued that the department was following a similar playbook from past scandals: protect high-level officials “while defaming lower-ranking employees and then move on.”

An internal LAPD report that was released after the scandal broke suggested that Abuse of the body camera is more widespread than let it be public. Department officials tightened their camera policy and increased the possibility of using AI to review the countless hours of footage that go unseen each month.

Garza has sued the department once before, alleging he was transferred and otherwise retaliated against after reporting misconduct ranging from overt homophobia and racial bias by certain officers to an allegation that a West Capt. LA went in a vehicle with fake license plates to avoid. payment of highway tolls. The case was settled in 2015.

The LA County Prosecutor’s Office identified up to 350 criminal files which are potentially compromised because they relied on testimony or evidence gathered by Garza’s unit.

Prosecutors filed filings showing that even the case against Carrillo, the officer facing criminal charges, was complicated because potential witnesses who served with him were included on a list of officers with known credibility problems.