It was just after 12:30am on June 9th that Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies responded to an ongoing robbery at his Lynnwood home.
Upon arrival, they saw Federico Rodriguez, 45, through the window and held what looked like scissors, according to a summary of the department’s case.
Hearing the screams inside, the deputies open the door and enter the house, where they spot Rodriguez repeatedly stabbing women. Sergeant. Marcos Esquibel immediately drew his handgun, showing footage from a camera covered in his body, fired multiple shots of Rodriguez killing him.
The incident was the fifth of six deadly shootings by deputies reported so far this year by the Sheriff’s Office.
Rodriguez is a surviving woman. But despite apparently life-saving actions of agents, two days later, the case became the point of controversy in a wider dispute between the department investigating illegal activities and the use of deadly force by law enforcement agencies and the LA County inspector’s office.
The inspector’s office sent a letter to the County Board of Supervisors on June 11, raising concerns that officials were blocked from scenes of shootings by deputies and deaths at the county jail.
Inspector General Max Huntsman said his office interprets state laws that led to its creation more than a decade ago, giving him and his staff the authority to conduct meaningful on-site investigations.
Inspector Max Huntsman heard testimony in 2024 at the Robinson Courthouse at Loyola Law School.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
Huntsman allows staff to watch the shooting scene and receive information directly from murder detectives and other sheriff’s department staff, and the bodies have not yet been removed.
But the Sheriff’s Department has repeatedly denied or restricted access, Huntsman said. The June 11 letter announced “an indefinite suspension of the Office of the Regular Deployment Office for shootings and audit deaths involving adjutants.”
Huntsman said the decision to suspend the rollout was a response to a sustained lack of transparency by the Sheriff’s Department.
“The purpose of going there is to conduct an independent investigation. All we do is to give them what we want us to know, and it’s not an independent investigation,” he told The Times. “We’re not going to pretend to do that, just peer under the curtains.”
At a private oversight committee meeting on July 17, Sheriff Robert Luna said his department was “now in the process.”
Interior view of the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Luna called Huntsman’s June 11 letter “anxiety,” but disputed how many times officials left, saying that he only knew that it was happening “at least once in the last five years.”
Commissioner Jamon Hicks asked further, asking if the department could be incorrect regarding whether access was restricted or denied given the inspector’s office repeatedly claimed to be a problem.
“It’s possible and I want to see the information,” Luna said. “I’ve never had any of them offered to me before.”
Huntsman told The Times on July 9 that officials in his office were “banned from entering” Rodriguez’s house, similar to Rodriguez’s house. At least this was the seventh time the sheriff’s department had been inappropriately restricted since 2020.
In a statement, the Sheriff’s Office said, “The allegations that OIG was denied access on June 9th were [deputy-involved shooting] Lynnwood’s scene is inaccurate. ”
“OIG representatives were on the scene and were given the same briefing along with the Chief of Directors of Relations, the Interior Affairs Bureau, the Office of Civil Litigation, the Department of Training, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,” the statement said.
The exterior of the recruitment banner outside the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
The statement went on to state that the department “is only aware of one incident on February 27, 2025.” Oig was denied access to the Associate’s shooting range.
“The Sheriff’s department is firmly committed to law enforcement transparency and continues to work closely and collaboratively with all watchdogs,” the statement said.
During the July 17 meeting, Dara Williams, deputy director of the Inspectors’ Office, said office staff often arrive at the filming location hours after deputies pulled the trigger due to logistical challenges of traveling around the county. Sheriff’s murder detectives usually present preliminary findings and provide tours of the scene.
However, on several occasions, the Watchdog has been completely denied access and relies solely on information the sheriff’s department has chosen to release, Williams said.
Hans Johnson, the newly elected chairman of the Civic Monitoring Committee, said investigators cannot properly perform their job without scrutinizing the murder scene.
“We rely on some as the eyes and ears of the community and as cases of these high value and very troublesome deaths,” he said at a July 17 meeting.
Williams also said the Sheriff’s Office was “painful and slow” to request additional information and records following the murders by lawmakers. She said in one particularly bad example: “We served as a subpoena last October and we are still waiting for documents and answers.”
In response to Huntsman’s letter on June 16, Luna wrote to the Supervisory Board that the Constitutional Police Department “supported the OIG by providing departmental information to 49 of the 53 instances.” “It’s enough to say it,” he added in the letter:
Luna said access could be restricted from time to time to maintain evidence, but Williams said that he “doesn’t think it’s fair to say we’ve been ruled out.”
Williams told the committee that Huntsman later told the Times was a February 27 incident at Rosemead, and that he was not allowed to tour the scene earlier this year.
The sheriff’s case outline states that Deputy Gregory Chico rejected an order to drop a meat knife and shot 56-year-old Susan Lou after raising the blade “at the deputy.” Lu was taken to hospital and was declared dead later that day.
In a letter on June 16th, Luna wrote, “OIG, the Interior Affairs Bureau (IAB), other divisional units and executives were denied access due to concerns about the preservation of evidence given the limited territories and complexity of the layout of the scene.”
The murder occurred, Williams told the committee, “There was a narrow hallway, but the actual incident happened in the bedroom, so I don’t know why they couldn’t walk down the narrow hallway and see the bedroom.”
“The bottom line,” she later added. “We give them the idea that this is actually an effective surveillance and we’re going to give them, once again, we’re getting information from the department.”
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