A Law Enforcement Bombshell

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury dropped something of a bombshell this week. It capped his five-month investigation into the death of Malibu millionaire Donald P. Scott during a drug raid last year at Scott’s Trail’s End Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains.

About 30 law enforcement officers from agencies including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration, the National Park Service and the California National Guard converged on the ranch on the morning of Oct. 2. Scott was fatally shot by an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy in the incident.

Now, Bradbury says that the same sheriff’s deputy may have lied to obtain the search warrant used in the raid on Scott’s ranch and that false information was used in the affidavit seeking the warrant, making it illegal.

Bradbury also believes that a federal drug agent could not possibly have seen 50 marijuana plants--without binoculars--from an airplane 1,000 feet above the Scott ranch as he claimed and that the raid was prompted partly by a desire to seize the $5-million property for the government under federal forfeiture laws. No marijuana plants were found on the ranch.

Given the seriousness of these accusations and suspicions, Bradbury is exactly right when he says that further investigation is in order. He is forwarding the results of his investigation to grand juries and the sheriff’s departments in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, the California attorney general’s office, the U.S. attorney general’s office, the Los Angeles district attorney and the FBI.

At the same time, however, Bradbury also concluded that the deputy who killed Scott acted in self-defense. Scott was armed with a pistol at the time of the shooting. Bradbury also said that he could not prove that any law enforcement officer had broken the law.

At issue is the integrity of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department, and the career of a sheriff’s deputy, a veteran narcotics officer who has maintained a clean record to this point.

For those and other reasons, this incident clearly deserves the thorough scrutiny of a grand jury, as well as frank assessments by all the law enforcement agencies involved.