Sheriff: Questions, but Few Answers

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have already shot and killed more people this year than in three of the past five years. That is not a reassuring statistic.

It’s possible that this is a statistic that can be explained. But so far Sheriff Sherman Block is not adequately doing that. In fact, the question arises whether he’s doing enough to answer allegations that his deputies resort to force too often and too quickly.

The Sheriff’s Department is investigating two high-profile, deputy-involved shootings. One involves the death of a 19-year-old gang member at the Ramona Gardens housing project two weeks ago; the other is the killing last week of former mental patient Keith Hamilton, 33. Hamilton’s mother called deputies because she said her son had become argumentative and would not leave her Ladera Heights home.

Neighbors said that initially a woman deputy had success in calming Hamilton down. But when he refused to leave, backup help was called and, according to neighbors, the problem escalated as other deputies arrived with guns drawn.

After the shooting one witness said that two deputies briefly left the scene and then returned, one of them wiping an object that appeared to be metallic. A deputy placed the object near or under the body, the witness said.

Deputies said Hamilton was “extremely agitated and uncooperative” and was shot after he “reached for the knife on his belt.” When asked if a knife could have been planted on Hamilton, Block said he thinks “somebody either embellished what they saw or saw something that didn’t exist.” Block also has said he is confident that the investigation of the Ramona Gardens fatal shooting will show that deputies acted properly.

Block should not rush to condemn his deputies; but neither should he leap to conclusions in the other direction, lest he appear to prejudge the outcome of the investigations before they are completed.

Unless county residents are convinced that Block’s department can fully and fairly conduct these investigations, demands for an independent probe will only grow louder.