FBI Probes Alleged Beatings by Officers

The FBI is investigating allegations that a mentally ill 18-year-old man was beaten last year by Baldwin Park police and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies in two separate incidents.

Undertaken at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, the investigation focuses on possible civil rights violations as charged by Laurence Jones of Baldwin Park.

Deputies responding to a complaint of a domestic dispute arrested Jones on Sept. 13, 1993, in the Baldwin Park home of his parents, Ralph and Barbara Jones, both 52. Jones, whose diagnosis indicates that he suffers paranoid schizophrenia and is manic-depressive, attacked police and was charged with assaulting an officer. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced on April 18 of this year to 90 days in home custody.

During his arrest last year, Laurence Jones was beaten by two Baldwin Park police officers, his mother said. Five days later, while he was in custody in the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center, sheriff’s deputies beat him a second time as he was strapped to a gurney, she said.

“He didn’t know why he got beat up (by sheriff’s deputies),” Barbara Jones said. “He kept asking could he get up out of bed to use the bathroom and they called him (names) and beat him.”

Officials from the Sheriff’s Department refused to comment.

Baldwin Park Police Chief Carmine Lanza said, “Our officers acted appropriately and within policy. . . . They suffered worse injuries than he did.”