Malibu citizens are letting their voices be heard through the Malibu City Council to recommend changes in the current arrestee release policies throughout Los Angeles County.
Much of the support follows the two-year anniversary of the Mitrice Richardson case, in which the 24-year-old woman was released shortly after midnight from the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station without her belongings, and was found dead seven miles away in Malibu backcountry 11 months later.
After several individual presentations at last week’s Malibu City Council meeting, the group unanimously voted to endorse the policy change to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The official request from the municipal Public Safety Commission asked the sheriff’s department to “consider a change in policy to have local stations allow detainees to be released only between sunrise to sunset unless proper transportation has been secured.”
Several Malibu citizens offered up specific perspectives on the varying legal and social implications that this policy change contains.
Ronda Hampton, an LA County citizen and friend of Richardson, expressed that the issue of safe release is not just a Malibu problem, but also one that is being confronted worldwide.
She also noted that one of the proclaimed core values of the LACSD is for “deputies to use common sense in the line of duty,” which she believes should be applied to these new release policies to prohibit the release of individuals “without the means to care for themselves.”
The policy change, initially inspired by the Richardson tragedy, is being reinforced with multiple other recent sightings of women being released from the side door of the sheriff’s station.
According to Hampton, these other detainees are being released without necessities like phones and purses, having been told to keep those items in their towed vehicles.
In response, the PSC members are also advocating that LACSD detainees “be permitted to retain possession” of their personal items in order to allow for a safe and timely release.
Another speaker at the Malibu City Council meeting, Lisa Santamaria, a member of a volunteer group organized to help protect released detainees in the LA County area, shared the stories of several individuals who have been released under such circumstances.
“In February of 2011, a female was observed released, again, from the side door of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in a dazed and incoherent state of mind and … did not have her belongings with her, and certainly did not have the capacity to get to public transportation, or to get to her car that had been towed,” Santamaria said. She encouraged members of the council to witness the allegedly common scene themselves.
“As you live in this community, I encourage you to go down to this station, particularly as it gets closer to dusk,” Santamaria said. “There are no open businesses, there are no public pay phones, there is no public transportation.”
Following the speakers, the five council members voted unanimously to approve a letter to be sent to Sheriff Lee Baca, followed up with a personal meeting, in order to encourage policy change that would be applied throughout all of the LA County stations.
Mayor of Malibu John Sibert pointed out that as a council, an advisory letter would be the highest form of action that they could take in dealing with the LACSD.
“We do not have the authority to tell them how to do their business,” Sibert said.
But some individuals like Linda Vallejo, a firm advocate for change regarding the Richardson case, said that voicing concerns together as a city will help motivate the LACSD countywide policy change.
“We are here not to demand change in the policy; we are here to ask the City Council to join us as the squeaky wheel in applying pressure to effect this change in their policy,” Vallejo said.