LOS ANGELES _ Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell has launched a pair of internal reviews into a team of deputies who have pulled over thousands of innocent Latino drivers on the 5 Freeway in a search for drugs.
Sheriff's officials told the department's civilian oversight commission Thursday that auditors were examining data on the traffic stops and the department's constitutional policing adviser is reviewing the team's practices amid allegations that deputies engaged in racial profiling along the highway.
The announcement came as commission members questioned department brass about the team's work and a Los Angeles Times investigation that found the deputies stopped and searched the vehicles of Latino drivers at far higher rates than motorists of other racial or ethnic groups.
Chief John Benedict and Capt. Robert Lewis, who oversee the Domestic Highway Enforcement Team, denied that deputies target Latino drivers as they make stops along a rural, 40-mile stretch of the freeway near Santa Clarita.
Commissioner Lael Rubin, a former supervisor in the district attorney's office, asked whether the board would be able to review data the department collects on the team's traffic stops. Benedict responded by highlighting the two ongoing inquiries, which are in addition to an independent review being done by Max Huntsman, the county's inspector general. Huntsman told commissioners he would provide them the department's traffic stop data.
In a brief interview afterward, Benedict said McDonnell had ordered the parallel reviews, but did not give details on the scope or time frame of the work that the auditors and adviser will undertake.
Huntsman told the commission that he, too, was unable to say when his inquiry would be complete and agreed to update the board on his progress at its next meeting. He applauded the department's decision to conduct its own audit, but said sheriff's officials should have been analyzing the team's stops before the Times did.
"The most troubling thing about what happened in the Times was it was news _ that we didn't know it already, that the department wasn't already crunching these numbers," Huntsman said.
A Times analysis of more than 9,000 stops found that 69 percent of drivers stopped by the highway team from its start in 2012 through the end of last year were Latino and that two-thirds of them had their vehicles searched _ a rate far higher than motorists of other racial and ethnic groups.
Though two-thirds of Latino drivers who were pulled over had their vehicles searched, cars belonging to all other drivers were searched less than half the time, according to the analysis of sheriff's stop data. Deputies found drugs or other illegal items in the vehicles of Latino motorists at a rate that was not significantly higher than that of black or white drivers, the Times' analysis found.
Some Latino drivers pulled over by the team have said they believe they were the victims of racial profiling.
After the Times shared its findings with the department, officials declined to address the racial disparities, but denied the deputies use race as a factor when making stops. Instead, deputies pull people over for traffic violations or other infractions and then look for suspicious behavior or other signs from drivers and passengers that contraband may be hidden in the vehicle, the officials said.
Lewis and Benedict reiterated that defense of the highway team Thursday. They criticized the Times' comparison of the sheriff's traffic stops to activity by the California Highway Patrol, since the CHP patrols a larger area than just that section of the 5 Freeway.
The Times analyzed traffic stops the CHP made in its Newhall patrol area, which includes the section of the 5 Freeway where the sheriff's team makes stops as well as other freeways and roads in the area. It found that in 37 percent of the traffic stops made by CHP officers, the driver was Latino.
Though the sheriff's deputies are looking for any type of serious criminal, nearly all of the team's arrests are for drug-related crimes. The 5 Freeway, they say, is a pipeline for cartels to move drugs up the West Coast and return to Mexico with cash from drug sales as well as weapons purchased in the United States.
The team's work has resulted in a haul that includes more than a ton of methamphetamine, two tons of marijuana, 600 pounds of cocaine and millions of dollars in suspected drug money.
