County supervisors to see internal sheriff’s reports on shootings

Los Angeles County officials have agreed on a process that will allow members of the County Board of Supervisors to see reports from internal Sheriff’s Department investigations of deputy-involved shootings and other use-of-force cases.

County Supervisors Gloria Molina blasted the county’s lawyers earlier this month for denying her access to the reports. She was seeking information on a fatal September deputy-involved shooting in East Los Angeles. A deputy involved in that incident, Anthony Forlano, had been involved in six prior shootings.

District attorney’s staff had objected to allowing the supervisor to see the sheriff’s reports in the case while prosecutors were reviewing it and deciding whether to file criminal charges. Prosecutors were concerned that allowing Molina to review the reports would mean they would also have to turn them over to members of the public in response to a public records request, Sheriff’s Department Inspector General Max Huntsman -- himself a former prosecutor -- told the board.

The district attorney’s office withdrew their objections after prosecutors finsihed their review of the case on March 6 and determined that Forlano and another deputy involved in the shooting acted in self-defense. The suspect who was fatally shot, Carlos Oliva-Sola, had a gun and scuffled with deputies, prosecutors found. Oliva-Sola dropped the gun at some point before he was shot, but prosecutors concluded that the deputies were not aware of that.

County Counsel John Krattli proposed a process for reviewing future reports, which the board unanimously voted to approve Tuesday. Board members will send requests to the Sheriff’s Department via Krattli’s office and will agree to review the reports under “pretty stringent confidentiality measures,” Krattli said.

If Sheriff John Scott does not agree to release a report, he will be asked to provide a written response explaining how allowing the supervisors to see it would jeopardize the investigation. The supervisors will then discuss in closed session how to respond.

Molina praised the new protocol as a “very straightforward process that assures confidentiality, that allows the kind of supervision and duty and responsibility that we have under the Constitution.”

“It’s unfortunate that it took this kind of grief and battle to convince our own county counsel about what our duties and responsibilities are, but at the end of the day, he did get it,” she said.

The Sheriff’s Department did not immediately provide a reaction to the new process.

Twitter: @sewella

abby.sewell@latimes.com