Deputy Faces Charges of Abuse, Threats

A Riverside County sheriff’s deputy was charged Thursday with five counts of spousal and child abuse and criminal threats against his live-in girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter, authorities said.

Deputy Efrain Santos Jr., 28, also is under investigation for allegedly using excessive force in an arrest, sheriff’s officials said.

According to court documents, Santos told his girlfriend that if he were fired, he would walk into the Palm Desert sheriff’s station where he worked and “start shooting the traitors until he was shot.”

He also threatened to “go out like McGowan” -- referring to Riverside County Dist. Atty. Investigator David McGowan, who killed his wife, mother and three children May 10 before committing suicide, court documents allege.

The woman “was seriously concerned about her life and that of her daughter,” Riverside County district attorney’s spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt said. “The comment about recent events is fresh in everyone’s minds ... and she took it seriously. This is a deputy who knows how to use a weapon.”

Santos, who was jailed Wednesday on $1-million bail, pleaded not guilty Thursday to the four felony and one misdemeanor counts against him in Riverside County Superior Court in Indio.

Riverside County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Earl Quinata said that Santos, a patrol officer for seven years, had been placed on administrative leave and that he was being paid his accrued vacation and sick time.

Santos’ girlfriend of two years reported the alleged abuse and threats to Indio police on May 27. She accused Santos of physically abusing her in November and twice in May, and of physically abusing her daughter in November and February. She reported that Santos had grabbed her by the upper arms, which caused bruising, according to court records.

In court documents, investigators said the girlfriend reported that Santos’ behavior became more “psychotic and volatile” since he was placed on administrative leave in late April for a “use-of-force issue” connected to an arrest he made.

Quinata declined to provide details on the internal review of the excessive-force allegation.