By Josh Cain
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva threatened Wednesday to pull his deputies from patrolling Metro trains, buses and stations this summer if its board won’t honor his demand to have his department exclusively patrol the entire regional system.
Villanueva’s proposal would scrap the current system, which divides Metro into three jurisdictions under the Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles and Long Beach police departments. Until 2017, the Sheriff’s Department had patrolled all of Metro for decades.
The sheriff also demanded that his deputies — rather than Metro employees who are not law enforcement — be allowed to enforce Metro’s code of conduct for riders. The code covers non-criminal offenses like spitting and urinating on trains and buses, and fare evasion.
The sheriff said the contract will end on July 1. Currently, 300 deputies are assigned to patrol Metro in Sheriff’s Department areas.
“If they don’t give you an answer by July 1, or they respond in the negative, you will literally pull hundreds of deputies off the line?” a reporter asked.
“Mhm,” Villanueva said, nodding his head.
Villanueva said his comments Wednesday were prompted by the attack on commuters riding the New York City subway on Tuesday. Pressed by a reporter, however, Villanueva said his department has been considering pulling out of Metro for a few months. He said LASD sent a letter to the Metro board about a half hour before he appeared before the press at the Hall of Justice.
The sheriff also referred to apparent increasing crime on the Metro system, saying that he could use the 300 deputies elsewhere, and that the rules for the codes of conduct enforcement mean this deputies were “sitting on their hands.” He claimed crime was increasing on the Metro system as a result.
The crime numbers Villanueva shared during his own event Wednesday showed a slightly different story, however. Some crimes were up, while others were down.
Robberies, assaults and thefts make up the vast majority of crimes reported on Metro, according to the numbers.
Based on the year so far, a projection Villanueva shared for the rest of 2022 showed robberies could spike to 124, a significant increase from the 74 reported in 2021.
But the numbers showed aggravated assaults would end up lower than the year before — potentially, 136 assaults, versus 140 in 2021.
For thefts, the number so far this year would translate to the lowest number reported in four years, at 100.
Villanueva’s statements Wednesday were in line with his overtly aggressive posture toward other public officials across the region for much of his tenure.
Villanueva has picked numerous fights over both his budget and over transparency measures meant to ensure discipline for his deputies accused of misconduct. He’s sparred publicly with the L.A. County CEO’s office, the Board of Supervisors, District Attorney George Gascón and a civilian-led panel tasked with providing oversight over his department.
In a bizarre exchange with the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times on March 29, Villanueva, unprompted, accused L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman of being a Holocaust denier. When asked by a board member where he learned this information, Villanueva demurred.
“There’s a lot you need to learn about,” he told the board. “And I think you need to start doing your own homework on it.”
The contract signed with all three police agencies in 2017 was worth $681 million, according to KPCC. Villanueva claimed his contract proposal would save the system $30 million. But it’s not clear whether Metro would be interested in moving away from the shared system it has now.
Metro officials in a statement said the system had already committed to paying all three agencies until around October, and was prepared for an even longer contract.
“The Metro Board of Directors approved funding the remaining six months of our law enforcement contracts with ( LAPD, the Sheriff, and Long Beach) and authorized an extension of up to one-year to allow for a new procurement process of law enforcement services,” officials said in a statement.
©2022 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit dailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.