LOS ANGELES COUNTY : Panel Votes to Reinstate Deputy Fired for Shooting
The Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission Wednesday voted 3 to 2 to tentatively approve the recommendation of a hearing officer for the reinstatement of a sheriff’s deputy who was fired for policy violations after he fatally shot a 15-year-old Montebello youth in 1991.
The motion for the reinstatement of Jose Belmares, 30, with full back pay, must still be finalized, and the Sheriff’s Department, as well as the family of David Angel Ortiz, will have a chance in the next month to argue against it, officials said.
After hearing 11 days of testimony in what has been one of the most controversial sheriff’s shooting cases of the last two years, hearing officer Michael Prihar ruled that Belmares had acted reasonably in shooting Ortiz and that the department was wrong in firing the officer.
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