Two veteran Los Angeles police sworn members are suing the city for whistleblower retaliation, alleging that a captain and a deputy chief targeted them for being a witness to a Black officer’s complaint that he was picked to be part of Mayor Karen Bass’ bodyguard detail because he, like the mayor, is Black.
Lt. Eric Bixler and Det. Richard Jaramillo filed the whistleblower lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeking unspecified damages. A representative for the City Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Wednesday.
The LAPD’s U.S. Marshals Task Force combines the resources of the United States Marshals Service with those of the department to locate, arrest and prosecute dangerous and violent criminals in Los Angeles. The local task force is made up of about a dozen 12 LAPD detectives and police officers and one U.S. marshal, all of whom are supervised by Bixler and Jaramillo.
While detectives and others do investigations to identify criminals, the task force is primarily responsible for apprehending those suspects. Bixler was hired by the LAPD in 1996 and Jaramillo in 2000, and both have been task force heads for many years.
Since 2020, the task force has received long-term “loans” of officers from the Metropolitan Division to be part of a “chase unit” to help bring about arrests when it is most safe to do so, according to the suit, which states that Officers Jonathan Pacheco and Derrick Boykins were among such “loaned”...
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