On August 21, 2019, eyes across the United States were on Los Angeles, drawn to the massive manhunt for an alleged sniper who fired at the Lancaster station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Around 2:50 PM, Deputy Angel Reinosa radioed that he had been shot in the shoulder while walking across the station’s parking lot, triggering the large-scale dragnet. One week later, the LASD held a press conference claiming that Reinosa had made everything up.
At least three witnesses, including another deputy, claimed that they had heard gunshots or loud popping noises. Reinosa’s shirt was recovered from the scene, bloodstained and with tears to the right shoulder. No bullets were recovered, but the LASD reported locating nearly 10 airsoft pellets in the area, as well as several metal BBs. But the “deputy fabricated shooting” narrative pushed by the LASD was quickly adopted as the truth by most major media outlets.
Some even reported that Reinosa had confessed to making up the whole thing days after the fact. Reinosa denies this claim, which appears to have originated during a press conference from Assistant Sheriff Robin Limon. In May 2021, Limon wrote a letter on behalf of Sheriff Alex Villanueva to then Assistant Chief Eli Vera, questioning Vera’s ability to campaign for sheriff while serving as a high-ranking official in the department. Villanueva later...
According to a BBC undercover investigation, unregulated immigration advisors are allegedly encouraging people to make false claims of domestic abuse to secure their right to stay in the UK. Right...