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From “Jigsaw John” to “Captain Hollywood”, at a police station with a long tradition of colorful nicknames – LAPD Sergeant. Joseph Lloyd stands out.
“Grimm Reaper.”
At least, it’s people who are capable of calling veteran interior detectives who are usually out of their ears.
According to an officer who found himself during the investigation by Lloyd, he appears to enjoy Monica and is delighted to end his career, even if it means twisting the facts and ignoring the evidence.
However, Lloyd’s supporters are why he is entrusted with some of the most politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing cases in the department as he maintains his incredible pursuit of truth.
Lloyd, 52, declined to comment. However, the Times spoke with more than half a dozen current or former police officers who either worked with him or fell into scrutiny.
In nearly a decade he was involved in the interior affairs, Lloyd investigated officers of all ranks.
When a retired LAPD officer since then suspected of running a gun across the Mexican border, the department turned to Lloyd to arrest him.
In 2020, when it was revealed that members of the Elite Metropolitan Division had mistakenly labelled civilians as gang members in the police database, Lloyd was tapped to unravel the confusion.
And once again rushed the Grim Reaper when the San Fernando Valley anti-gang squad was accused of hiding a driver’s shakedown in 2023.
Recently he was assigned to a departmental task force considering allegations of excessive force by police against activists opposed to government immigration crackdowns.
In LAPD, like most metropolitan police stations across the country, interior inspectors tend to be seen by their colleagues in doubt and in denial emptying. They usually try to work with relative anonymity.
Not Lloyd.
The 24-year LAPD veteran has become the face of the contested debate over the LAPD’s long disciplinary system. Unions representing most executives have long complained that well-connected senior leaders are receiving positive treatment. Others refute the counter that rank and file police officers who commit fraud routinely unhooks.
A recent study commissioned by Chief Jim McDonnell found that perceived inequities in internal investigations is a “serious issue” among executives who contributed to low morale. McDonnell says he wants to speed up investigations and better screening complaints, but efforts by past chiefs and city councils have repeatedly overhauled the system.
Sarah Dunster, 40, was a sergeant who worked in the Hollywood division of LAPD in 2021. She learns that she is allegedly mistreated a complaint against one of the officers accused of exploring the woman she arrested.
Dunster said he remembered being interviewed by Lloyd. Lloyd said it seemed designed to trip her up and catch her with a lie rather than hearing what happened. Some of her responses never did that to Lloyd’s report, she said.
“He wanted to fire me,” she said.
Dunster was fired in the case, but she appealed, and last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge gave her a reprieve that would allow her to potentially regain her work.
Others who worked with Lloyd say he is seen as a savvy investigator who is unfairly vilified due to the discipline decisions that will ultimately be made by the police chief. The supervisor who oversaw Lloyd in his home affairs and demanded anonymity as he was not permitted to speak to the media, described him as a clever, meticulous, “bulldog.”
“Joe goes where the facts lead him and he doesn’t have the trouble of asking difficult questions,” the supervisor said.
The supervisor added that on multiple occasions, the Interior received complaints from senior department officials whom Lloyd believed had not shown sufficient respect during the interrogation. Other supporters point to their willingness to take on controversial cases to hold officers accountable, even while facing character attacks from colleagues, lawyers and powerful Los Angeles Police Protection League.
The officer sniped his unfair build, tendencies to smile during interviews and other eccentricities. He wears two watches. One on each wrist is a habit I heard of as I was moonlit as a high school lacrosse judge.
However, he has also been criticized as strict and uncompromising, and appears to be locked only to details pointing to the officer’s guilt. People he grills say that when he can’t get the answer he’s looking for, he tends to be col Mbo style and ask the same question in different ways.
And instead of asking officers to clarify the contradictions in their statement, Lloyd automatically assumes they are lying, critics said.
Mario Munoz, former LAPD Home Officer who opened a boutique company that supports executives fighting employment and disciplinary cases, recently released a 60-page report that questioned what he called a series of nasty lapses in a 2023 investigation of the mission gang unit. Report name drops Lloyd several times.
The department accused several mission officers of stealing brass knuckles and other items from San Fernando Valley drivers and attempting to hide their actions from supervisors by turning off cameras that their bodies used.
Munoz said he received a call from an officer who said Lloyd had violated his due process rights. Since then, several have filed complaints against Lloyd with the department. He argued that Lloyd would eventually “collect some scapegoats to protect a higher level of leadership from scrutiny.”
Until his retirement from LAPD in 2014, Munoz worked as both an investigator and an auditor, reviewing a groundbreaking internal investigation into the Lampert gang scandal, where police were accused of assaulting black driver Rodney King and other crimes, where police were accused of stealing people and planting evidence.
Munoz is currently repeatedly complaining about internal affairs from current officers in general, with Lloyd in particular working to protect the department’s image at every cost.
“He’s the guy they chose because he doesn’t question management,” Munoz said of Lloyd.
In the case of the mission, Munoz pointed to the inconsistent outcome of the two captains who oversaw the police division accused of fraud. One transferred and later promoted, while the other fights for his job amid accusations that he did not restrain the police.
Two other supervisors – Lieutenant Colonel Mark Garza and Sgt. Jorge “George” Gonzalez – Internal LAPD report said he was accused of creating “a work environment that led to the creation of a police gang.” Both Garza and Gonzalez sued the city and alleged that they were punished by the LAPD after the scandal was released, despite reporting fraud as soon as they realised it.
According to an interview with Munoz’s report and department sources, Lloyd was almost alone responsible for opening mission cases.
It began with a complaint made in late December 2022 by a driver who said he was searched for no reason in a nearby patrol area. Lloyd learns that the officers involved have a pattern that doesn’t document traffic outages – exploiting loopholes in the department’s audit system for dashboards and body cameras. The more Lloyd was dug, the more he revealed about these so-called “ghost stops.”
A few months later, the secret agent’s interior detective began chasing after the two involved officers. Garza and Gonzalez both claimed they were kept in the dark.
As of last month, four involved officers had been fired, and four more officers had been disciplinary hearings, with the job being balanced. The other three resigned before the department took action. Suspicious mastermind Officer Alan Carrillo faces charges of theft and “change of evidence, planting or cover-up.” He was recently offered to divert pretrial by LA County prosecutors, according to court records. Carrillo pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In an interview with the Times, Gonzalez, a sergeant facing fire, recalled a recorded interrogation moment when he found it very troublesome to contact Police Union Director Jamie McBride to express his concern. He said McBride had gone to Lloyd’s boss, then Chief of Science Michael Limkunas, and called for Lloyd’s removal from internal affairs.
I failed to move. Lloyd continued his work.
Limkunas confirmed the exchange with police union leaders in an interview with the Times.
He said that Lloyd could not be discussed, particularly due to the state’s personnel privacy laws, but generally the department assigns high profile home affairs cases to proven and proven detectives.
However, Gonzalez cannot shake up the feeling that Lloyd crossed the line trying to crack him while questioning.
He says at one point, the detective casually turned his phone over, sitting on the table, while Lloyd asked the question. Behind the protection case, Gonzalez said.
“Then he looked back at it and saw it as if he was getting a response from me,” Gonzalez said. “It was definitely a way to make sure I was blackmailed.”
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