Sheriff Says Priest Gave Distorted View of His Detention by Deputies : Law enforcement: Block says he understands the black South African clergyman’s anger. But he denies that officers were carrying batons.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said Friday he understands why a visiting black Anglican priest from South Africa was angered over being detained by deputies when he had done nothing illegal, but accused the activist of exaggerating the incident.

Block said he realizes that, as a former prisoner of white South African authorities, the Rev. Lulama Ntshingwa might have perceived his encounter in Altadena differently than did the sheriff’s deputies.

“I’ll give him that,” Block said in an interview. “The thing I won’t give him is the (allegation that he was stopped by) baton-wielding officers. That’s an exaggeration. They were not carrying batons.”

The controversy began Tuesday morning after Ntshingwa, here as a guest of Amnesty International to speak on human rights, became lost while jogging and ran up the driveway of a house where he believed an Amnesty official lived. Instead, he encountered an elderly woman who later called police.

Within minutes, deputies stopped Ntshingwa and drove him to the Altadena sheriff’s station, where he was detained until he could prove his identity. He later wrote an essay about the affair and gave interviews alleging that he was mistreated because of his race.

Block said his deputies took the elderly woman’s complaint seriously because her bicycle had been stolen two weeks earlier and there had been a recent burglary nearby--both incidents involving strangers in the neighborhood.

Had Ntshingwa been “Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian or whatever, the response would have been exactly the same,” the sheriff said.

Block also released a transcript of a 15-minute conversation between the priest and a supervisor at the sheriff’s Altadena substation, Sgt. Roger Kelley, in which Kelley asks Ntshingwa whether he is alleging any impropriety by sheriff’s deputies. Ntshingwa responded that his only complaint was that deputies should have verified whether the woman who complained was lying about him.

At no point in the transcript does Ntshingwa allege that he was detained because he is black or that racism was involved in the conduct toward him--as he contended in an essay distributed to newspapers.

Ntshingwa was traveling to New York on Friday and was not available for comment.

Block also was critical of Ramona Ripston, executive director of the Southern California American Civil Liberties Union, for her “rush to judgment” that the deputies behaved in a racist fashion.

“With no knowledge of what happened, she immediately made a broad-brush criticism of law enforcement,” Block said of Ripston. “It is totally unfair for someone who holds a position in an organization that is supposedly devoted to due process.”

Ripston had called the Ntshingwa case “an example of the kind of racism that exists in so many law enforcement agencies.” On Friday, after being informed of Block’s criticisms, Ripston said that the ACLU had taken a lengthy statement from Ntshingwa and that she stands behind her remarks.

Ntshingwa’s host, Magdaleno Rose-Avila of Amnesty International, has also said that he believes the civil rights crusader would not embellish or distort his account.