new policy

L.A. County’s watchdogs suddenly need to ask permission before barking to the press and public.

County oversight officials and civil rights advocates are raising concerns about a new policy they say improperly limits their rights to communicate — including with other members of local government.

The policy, enacted Sept. 11, requires oversight officials to send many types of communications to the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors for approval.

The policy says “press releases, advisories, public statements, social media content, and any direct outreach to the BOS or their staff” must be “reviewed, approved and coordinated” before being released publicly or sent to other county officials.

The policy says the change “ensures that messaging aligns with County priorities, protects sensitive relationships, and maintains a unified public voice.”

Eric Miller, a member of the Sybil Brand Commission, which conducts inspections and oversight of L.A. County jails, said the policy is the latest example of the county “attempting to limit the oversight of the Sheriff’s Department.” He said he made the remarks as a private citizen because he was concerned the new communications policy barred him from speaking to the media in his role as an oversight official.

Michael Kapp, communications manager for the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors, said in an email that he personally drafted the policy shortly after he started in his position in July and discovered there “was no existing communications guidance whatsoever for commissions and oversight bodies.”

“Without clear guidance,” he said, “commissions and oversight bodies – most of which do not have any communications staff – were developing their own ad hoc practices, which led to inconsistent messaging, risks of misinformation, and deeply uneven engagement with the Board, the media, and the public.”

Although it is increasingly common for government agencies to tightly restrict how employees communicate with the press and public, L.A. County oversight officials had enjoyed broad latitude to speak their minds. The watchdogs have been vocal about a range of issues, including so-called deputy gangs in the Sheriff’s Department and grim jail conditions.

Some questioned the timing of the policy, which comes after a recent run of negative headlines, scandals and hefty legal payouts to victims of violence and discrimination by law enforcement.

Long-time Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission Chair Robert C. Bonner presides over the commission‘s meeting at St. Anne’s Family Services in Los Angeles on June 26, 2025. Bonner says he has since been forced out of his position as chair.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Longtime Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission chair Robert Bonner said he was ousted this summer as he and his commission made a forceful push for more transparency.

In February, former commission Chair Sean Kennedy resigned after a dispute with county lawyers, stating at the time that it was “not appropriate for the County Counsel to control the COC’s independent oversight decisions.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced this month that his office is suing L.A. County and the Sheriff’s Department over a “humanitarian crisis” that has contributed to a surge in jail deaths.

Kapp said the policy came about solely “to ensure stronger, more effective communication between oversight bodies, the public, and the Board of Supervisors.”

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, called the policy “troubling” and said it appears to allow the county to tell “Sybil Brand you’ve got to tone it down, or telling COC this isn’t the message the board wants to put out.”

“I learn about this policy right around the same time the state attorney general sues the county over horrific conditions in the jails,” Eliasberg said.

“There’s a ton of stuff in that lawsuit about Sybil Brand and Sybil Brand reports,” he added, citing commission findings that exposed poor conditions and treatment inside county jails, including vermin and roach infestations, spoiled food and insufficient mental health treatment for inmates.

Some current and former oversight officials said the new policy leaves a number of unanswered questions — including what happens if they ignore it and continue to speak out.

Kapp, the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors official who drafted the policy, said in his statement that “adherence is mandatory. That said, the goal is not punishment – it’s alignment and support.”

During the Civilian Oversight Commission’s meeting on Thursday, Hans Johnson, the commission’s chair, made fiery comments about the policy, calling it “reckless,” “ridiculous and ludicrous.”

The policy “represents one of the most caustic, corrosive and chilling efforts to squelch the voice of this commission, the office of inspector general and the Sybil Brand Commission,” Johnson said. “We will not be gagged.”

Times staff writer Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has walked back what lawyers called an illegal attempt to fast-track the deportation of a woman who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 30 years and to expel her without an immigration court hearing, her attorneys said.

Lawyers for Mirta Amarilis Co Tupul, 38, filed a lawsuit earlier this month to stop her imminent deportation to Guatemala. A U.S. district court judge in Arizona dismissed the case Wednesday after the federal government moved the woman to regular deportation proceedings and agreed in writing not to attempt expedited removal again, her lawyers said.

The judge had granted an emergency request to temporarily pause the deportation while the case played out in court.

The case highlighted broader concerns that the Trump administration is stretching immigration law to speed up deportations in its effort to remove as many immigrants as possible.

Federal law since 1996 holds that immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for fewer than two years can be placed in expedited removal proceedings which bypass the immigration court process. Longtime immigrants, however, cannot be removed until they’ve had a chance to plead their case before a judge.

In a sworn declaration, one of Co Tupul’s attorneys wrote that a deportation officer told her the agency had a “new policy” of placing immigrants in expedited removal proceedings after their first contact with immigration authorities.

“This appears to have been a test case in which the administration attempted to enforce a ‘new policy’ against Ms. Co Tupul,” Eric Lee, one of Co Tupul’s attorneys, said Thursday. “The district court quickly shut down this effort in no uncertain terms. Maybe this has slowed the government’s efforts to expand expedited removal, or maybe the government is waiting for another test case where the non-citizen lacks legal representation.”

Emails reviewed by The Times showed that Co Tupul’s lawyer provided extensive evidence of her longtime residence. Immigration officials told the lawyer that her client would remain in expedited removal proceedings anyway.

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that after Co Tupul’s lawyers provided documentation verifying she had lived in the U.S. for more than two years, “ICE followed the law and placed her in normal removal proceedings.”

“Any allegation that DHS is ‘testing out’ a new policy regarding illegal aliens who have been in the country for longer than two years into expedited removal is false,” McLaughlin added.

Co Tupul, a Phoenix resident, was pulled over as she drove to her job at a laundromat on July 22. She remains detained at Eloy Detention Center, about 65 miles southeast of Phoenix.

Citing successes other police departments across the country have seen using drones, the Los Angeles Police Commission said it would allow the LAPD to deploy unmanned aircraft on routine emergency calls.

The civilian oversight body approved an updated policy Tuesday allowing drones to be used in more situations, including “calls for service.” The new guidelines listed other scenarios for future drone use — “high-risk incident, investigative purpose, large-scale event, natural disaster” — and transferred their command from the Air Support Division to the Office of Special Operations.

Previously, the department’s nine drones were restricted to a narrow set of dangerous situations, most involving barricaded suspects or explosives.

LAPD Cmdr. Bryan Lium told commissioners the technology offers responding officers and their supervisors crucial, real-time information about what type of threats they might encounter while responding to an emergency.

Officials said there is strong community support for the expanding use of drones to combat crime — and offered reassurances that the new policy will not be used unconstitutionally.

Tuesday’s vote clears the way for a pilot program set to launch next month at four police divisions — Topanga, West L.A., Harbor and Central — spread across the department’s four geographical bureaus. The Commission asked the department to report back within six months on the program’s progress.

Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields said the old policy was understandably “very restrictive” as the department was testing out what was then an unproven technology. But that left the LAPD “behind the times” as other agencies embraced she said.

The commissioner pointed to the city of Beverly Hills, where police have been quick to adapt cutting-edge surveillance technology. Sending out a drone ahead of officers could help prevent dangerous standoffs, informing responding officers whether a suspect is armed or not, according to Gerges Shields, who served on an internal work group that crafted the new policy.

Commissioner Teresa Sanchez Gordon turned a more skeptical eye to the issue, saying the new policy needed to protect the public. She asked whether there were clear guidelines for how and when the devices are deployed during mass demonstrations, such as the ones that have roiled Los Angeles in recent weeks.

“I guess I just want to make sure that the recording of these activities will not be used against individuals who are lawfully exercising their rights,” she said.

The updated drone policy allows for the monitoring of mass protests for safety reasons, but department officials stressed that it will not be used to track or monitor demonstrators who aren’t engaged in criminal activities.

Equipping the drones with weapons or pairing them with facial recognition software is still off-limits, officials said.

The footage captured by the drones will be also subject to periodic audits. The department said it plans to develop a web portal where members of the public will be able to track a drone’s flight path, as well as the date, time and location of its deployment — but won’t be able to watch the videos it records.

Critics remain skeptical about the promises of transparency, pointing to the department’s track record with surveillance technology while saying they fear police will deploy drones disproportionately against communities of color. Several opponents of the program spoke out at Tuesday’s meeting.

The devices vary in size (2.5-5 lbs) and can cover a distance of two miles in roughly two minutes, officials said.

Expanding the role of drones has been under consideration for years, but a public outcry over a series of high-profile burglaries on the city’s West Side sparked an increased push inside the department.

The drone expansion comes amid a broader debate over the effectiveness of the department’s helicopter program, which has been criticized for being too costly.

In adopting the new guidelines, the department is following in the lead of smaller neighboring agencies. In addition to Beverly Hills, Culver City and Chula Vista that have been using drones on patrol for years and have more permissive regulations.

LAPD Cmdr. Shannon Paulson said that new policy will give the department greater flexibility in deploying drones. For instance, she said, under the old policy, a drone could normally only be dispatched to a bomb threat by a deputy chief or above who was at the scene, which led to delays.