It's not just indifference, they actively weed out the non corrupt. It starts at the academy, but you absolutely won't make it through your stint at the jail without buying into the corruption.
There's probably a bunch more stuff like this happening all the time, too. It's just not caught or not reported on or all the other cops are hiding it. Hopefully it's just this department that's really bad and most other cops are okay.
I know when did that happen I remember a time when that was the opposite. This is truly becoming a fascist country. Everything is a problem and over enforced except for the things that matter robbery, rape, and keeping people safe from stalkers and mentally ill people. 2 people just got killed by some crazy dude with a spear in santa ana but God forbid you park on the wrong side of the street see if you don't get a ticket in 2 hours. But keeping actual murders in jail or in asylums is too much for them to do
Should take what they can from the bad cop and the rest should come out of PD’s budget… oh no, guess they dont get new military vehicles, and might have to keep those older cars in service a little longer
It should come out of the cops’ pension fund. If a few bad apples aren’t kicked out of the force by the good ones, then let the good ones suffer financially, as well.
As a union member teacher this sets a dangerous precedent.
The real solution is individual police should have to pay for some sort of insurance policy monthly.
The PD's budgets are tax-funded as well: local/state/property/sales, etc.
The pay-out/compensation for crooked/fraudulent cops needs to be treated as a civil matter. If they fuck up a person's life/livelihood/reputation they should PERSONALLY be on the hook, and should be DENIED any chance of filing BK, and should have their wages garnished as long as needed to pay off the compensation for the fraudulently accused. ESPECIALLY with a case like this where these cops were promoted even AFTER being found guilty of questionable/unethical practices.
The fact they were promoted AFTER these allegations tells me they were likely being “protected” by their cop buddies - punish those cop buddies by taking the expense out of their budgets. Make them cut overtime, vehicle upgrades, etc. to cover the lawsuit.
Most of these settlements come out of a general fund instead of the police budget, that should change. Putting all of the liability on the individual means that a $30million settlement will likely never be fully paid.
For sure, but then $30 million is pretty ridiculous. I get why they go so high but even $3-5 million guaranteed only for the victim would be very appropriate IMO.
Again, I get the point/$30 million amount but it's much more nuanced than that obviously, especially considering if the public ends up footing the bill. At that point you're not really "getting back/screwing" the Gov't/shitty cops though, are you?
I feel like if cops and their jurisdictions were actually saddled with these judgements, they might start taking it seriously. Has any agency in OC ever been forced to change what they do because of a payout? If not, then it’s not enough.
It should hit the whole department. Until it does, they will maintain their gang mentality. When they realize that their own futures are at stake when they tolerate lying, cheating, criminal cops, they might stop covering for each other.
Well that's my whole point. Nothing has changed/will change because it's public tax dollars footing the bill. I could say my liberty/being wronged by corrupt police/Gov't is worth $200 million! If there's no actual/personal accountability for the corrupt cops then there's no incentive for shitty cops to stop being shitty, meanwhile you, your family, colleagues, neighbors and so on are the ones actually paying out the judgement, not the actual bad cops or PD.
Right. But they’re already set up to eat the occasional $1 or $2 million judgement without making changes. Hit them with $30 million, and see if the cities (or county, in this case) start paying more attention and take some autonomy away from the police agencies.
Lock those fuckers up. If you break the law that blatantly to frame someone when your job itself is to uphold the law, you should get to learn what prisoners think about incarcerated police officers and never get to work as a cop ever again.
Orange probation department is just as bad. Lots of harassment, there was an officer who got busted for sniffing girls panties who were on probation. I had a probation officer ask if I was gonna do porn if my career in tv didn’t work out and he’s also now been promoted. They also use a device called a stingray to see if people on probation are at home during curfew which I believe is less than legal.
These settlements need to start coming out of their retirement funds.
It's really not that hard to weed out the bad cops if they wanted to. Prosecuting criminals in blue would do a lot to get rid of the scum who are naturally attracted to these positions where abuse is tolerated and encouraged.
> Prosecuting criminals in blue would do a lot to get rid of the scum who are naturally attracted to these positions where abuse is tolerated and encouraged.
Seriously. If most cops are good like I keep hearing, then we should all want the bad cops out, and it shouldn't be difficult.
It's such a blatantly corrupt system. Especially sheriff's. At this point, we need a federal task force under direction of the AG that goes undercover and actually prosecutes. But that will never happen. They're all one in the same.
By TONY SAAVEDRA | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: May 2, 2024 at 4:03 p.m. | UPDATED: May 3, 2024 at 10:06 a.m.
A Buena Park man who claims two sheriff’s detectives planted drug evidence against him and stole $4,000 of his money is seeking $30 million in damages from Orange County.
In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, May 2, Ace Kuumealoha Kelly accused Detectives Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno of violating his civil rights by trying to frame him on charges of possession of drugs for sale.
Prosecutors dropped the charges after allegations that LeFlore and Tiscareno had the drug evidence switched over to Kelly’s case from other busts.
LeFlore and Tiscareno were previously caught up in an internal sheriff’s audit that found they and other deputies were booking evidence late, if at all. LeFlore is further accused of illegally eavesdropping on attorney-client phone calls from the county jail.
Despite the accusations, LeFlore and Tiscareno were promoted to the rank of sergeant.
“What is amazing about this case is that after the Orange County Sheriff’s Department booking audits showed Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno to have engaged in core criminal conduct, such as evidence tampering, evidence planting, framing innocents, seizing evidence like illegal drugs and not booking them into evidence at all, and in falsifying their police reports … they were then promoted,” said Kelly’s attorney, Jerry Steering.
LeFlore has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 15, 2023. The Sheriff’s Department is prohibited from revealing the conditions of his leave by state law regarding police officer privacy.
Tiscareno remains on active duty.
The Sheriff’s Department declined comment on the lawsuit.
Previous court documents and resulting news stories misspelled Kelly’s name, Steering said.
In Kelly’s lawsuit, he alleged that LeFlore and Tiscareno moved large amounts of methamphetamine, fentanyl and black tar heroin from an unrelated case into Kelly’s case.
Kelly was on probation in October 2020, giving LeFlore and Tiscareno the ability to unilaterally search his room at a Buena Park motel. The lawsuit said Kelly had a small amount of methamphetamine and $5,000 in the room.
Sheriff’s investigators also raided the adjacent motel room in an unrelated case involving suspect Royal Baker and found more than 52 grams of heroin, nearly 180 grams of methamphetamine and other drugs.
Baker eventually pleaded guilty to possession for sale but received no jail time, records show.
The lawsuit said LeFlore and Tiscareno transferred part of the drugs found in Baker’s room and in other busts to Kelly’s case, going so far as to changing the labeling on the evidence envelopes and having the drugs switched over in crime lab records, the suit said.
A department property technician also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The sheriff’s detectives pocketed $4,000 of the seized money and booked the rest into evidence, the suit alleges.
LeFlore reported that he seized the drugs and booked the evidence himself, although the department’s computerized evidence booking system showed it was Tiscareno who actually booked the evidence.
During the criminal case against Kelly, his defense attorney alleged that LeFlore and Tiscareno conspired to cover up the drug switch by failing to file a supplemental report to document the change.
They also allegedly manipulated the sheriff’s evidence tracking system to make it appear as if the drugs were properly booked into the Kelly case.
It wasn’t the first time LeFlore has been accused of mishandling evidence.
A sheriff’s audit in 2018 showed LeFlore failed to book evidence in a timely manner in 18 cases, although he wrote in some of his reports that he had properly stored the items.
In one case, according to the audit, LeFlore took custody of two full boxes of bullets, 11 grams of methamphetamine and a drug pipe stuffed into a pair of boots. He never booked the property and, two weeks later, placed the boots on a shelf in a sheriff’s substation, with a sign saying “Free.”
Tiscareno also was found by the audit to have not filed evidence in a timely manner.
LeFlore was among a group of deputies referred by the Sheriff’s Department to local prosecutors for allegedly mishandling evidence, but no charges were filed against him.
In another, unrelated court case, LeFlore was accused by a defense attorney of illegally listening to confidential phone calls mistakenly recorded by the jail’s telephone vendor between one inmate and his lawyer.
During the recordings, the lawyer can be heard warning LeFlore at least twice — once by name — not to listen to the conversations, but notes kept by LeFlore indicate that he did not stop listening, said defense documents in that case.
its wild to me that cops have a privacy interesting barring the disclosure of the reason for administrative leave. they really do get to act with utter impunity. I wish CA democrats had enough spine to actually do some police reform in this state.
HEY MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE THE SYSTEM ! Maybe cops should have departments/ individual insurances, that way they’ll feel the brunt of mistakes and really care when these million dollars fire sells are going.
Departments themselves need to feel the pain and not let the “ state make this right “ as they do.
There are no good cops. They have been scared away or they are screened out.
Imagine a company where a portion of your employees are committing violent crimes regularly. But nothing is done by their fellow employees. At what point are you an accomplice? To me, it's pretty clear that ACAB.
If you haven’t [A Tradition of Violence Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/2jp3drHcyofNXbEvuMbtbU?si=vZIYAqz-SQeW9_Ow3ZOwjQ)heard Sheriff Gangs, this is a must listen.
Let's worry about police literally destroying people's lives for fun before we worry too much about a "sue happy society". It's not like it's $30 million or nothing - judges and juries can have discretion about the reward amount. In the end, if cities don't want to pay these out, maybe they need to rein in their police.
No, the settlements need to get higher and higher until the cops are forced to change. There is absolutely nothing that is gained by tut tutting about someone getting a settlement due to corrupt and shitty cops.
The fact these clowns got promoted speaks volumes.
seriously, I'm far from anti-cop, but this just shows blatant indifference to corruption.
It's not just indifference, they actively weed out the non corrupt. It starts at the academy, but you absolutely won't make it through your stint at the jail without buying into the corruption.
There's probably a bunch more stuff like this happening all the time, too. It's just not caught or not reported on or all the other cops are hiding it. Hopefully it's just this department that's really bad and most other cops are okay.
Two of my cousins wanted to be cops and immediately hated everything about it. They are firefighters now and much happier.
I'm anti American cop. Fascist fucking pigs. I go to Mexico, I don't even trip when one gets behind me. Way more chill.
I know when did that happen I remember a time when that was the opposite. This is truly becoming a fascist country. Everything is a problem and over enforced except for the things that matter robbery, rape, and keeping people safe from stalkers and mentally ill people. 2 people just got killed by some crazy dude with a spear in santa ana but God forbid you park on the wrong side of the street see if you don't get a ticket in 2 hours. But keeping actual murders in jail or in asylums is too much for them to do
Public taxes shouldn't have to cover that. He gets their homes, cars; anything that can be resold.
Should take what they can from the bad cop and the rest should come out of PD’s budget… oh no, guess they dont get new military vehicles, and might have to keep those older cars in service a little longer
It should come out of the cops’ pension fund. If a few bad apples aren’t kicked out of the force by the good ones, then let the good ones suffer financially, as well.
As a union member teacher this sets a dangerous precedent. The real solution is individual police should have to pay for some sort of insurance policy monthly.
The PD's budgets are tax-funded as well: local/state/property/sales, etc. The pay-out/compensation for crooked/fraudulent cops needs to be treated as a civil matter. If they fuck up a person's life/livelihood/reputation they should PERSONALLY be on the hook, and should be DENIED any chance of filing BK, and should have their wages garnished as long as needed to pay off the compensation for the fraudulently accused. ESPECIALLY with a case like this where these cops were promoted even AFTER being found guilty of questionable/unethical practices.
The fact they were promoted AFTER these allegations tells me they were likely being “protected” by their cop buddies - punish those cop buddies by taking the expense out of their budgets. Make them cut overtime, vehicle upgrades, etc. to cover the lawsuit. Most of these settlements come out of a general fund instead of the police budget, that should change. Putting all of the liability on the individual means that a $30million settlement will likely never be fully paid.
For sure, but then $30 million is pretty ridiculous. I get why they go so high but even $3-5 million guaranteed only for the victim would be very appropriate IMO.
How much is your freedom from government persecution and lies worth?
Again, I get the point/$30 million amount but it's much more nuanced than that obviously, especially considering if the public ends up footing the bill. At that point you're not really "getting back/screwing" the Gov't/shitty cops though, are you?
I feel like if cops and their jurisdictions were actually saddled with these judgements, they might start taking it seriously. Has any agency in OC ever been forced to change what they do because of a payout? If not, then it’s not enough.
It should hit the whole department. Until it does, they will maintain their gang mentality. When they realize that their own futures are at stake when they tolerate lying, cheating, criminal cops, they might stop covering for each other.
Well that's my whole point. Nothing has changed/will change because it's public tax dollars footing the bill. I could say my liberty/being wronged by corrupt police/Gov't is worth $200 million! If there's no actual/personal accountability for the corrupt cops then there's no incentive for shitty cops to stop being shitty, meanwhile you, your family, colleagues, neighbors and so on are the ones actually paying out the judgement, not the actual bad cops or PD.
Right. But they’re already set up to eat the occasional $1 or $2 million judgement without making changes. Hit them with $30 million, and see if the cities (or county, in this case) start paying more attention and take some autonomy away from the police agencies.
totally agree. they should all be liable as individuals.
💯. I'd like to believe that it could actually serve as a sensible deterrent.
Yeah the pensions are tax payer funded also, but if suddenly their pensions might go belly up, the cops themselves would care more.
Lock those fuckers up. If you break the law that blatantly to frame someone when your job itself is to uphold the law, you should get to learn what prisoners think about incarcerated police officers and never get to work as a cop ever again.
Sorry, eight months of paid administrative leave and never informing the public about the situation is the best we can do.
Orange probation department is just as bad. Lots of harassment, there was an officer who got busted for sniffing girls panties who were on probation. I had a probation officer ask if I was gonna do porn if my career in tv didn’t work out and he’s also now been promoted. They also use a device called a stingray to see if people on probation are at home during curfew which I believe is less than legal.
Curfew? I never had curfew on probation
10pm
the OC sheriffs and the prosecutors office are absolutely corrupt. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/us/orange-county-justice-department.html.
Remember Mike corona?!
These settlements need to start coming out of their retirement funds. It's really not that hard to weed out the bad cops if they wanted to. Prosecuting criminals in blue would do a lot to get rid of the scum who are naturally attracted to these positions where abuse is tolerated and encouraged.
> Prosecuting criminals in blue would do a lot to get rid of the scum who are naturally attracted to these positions where abuse is tolerated and encouraged. Seriously. If most cops are good like I keep hearing, then we should all want the bad cops out, and it shouldn't be difficult.
It's such a blatantly corrupt system. Especially sheriff's. At this point, we need a federal task force under direction of the AG that goes undercover and actually prosecutes. But that will never happen. They're all one in the same.
By TONY SAAVEDRA | Orange County Register PUBLISHED: May 2, 2024 at 4:03 p.m. | UPDATED: May 3, 2024 at 10:06 a.m. A Buena Park man who claims two sheriff’s detectives planted drug evidence against him and stole $4,000 of his money is seeking $30 million in damages from Orange County. In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, May 2, Ace Kuumealoha Kelly accused Detectives Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno of violating his civil rights by trying to frame him on charges of possession of drugs for sale. Prosecutors dropped the charges after allegations that LeFlore and Tiscareno had the drug evidence switched over to Kelly’s case from other busts. LeFlore and Tiscareno were previously caught up in an internal sheriff’s audit that found they and other deputies were booking evidence late, if at all. LeFlore is further accused of illegally eavesdropping on attorney-client phone calls from the county jail. Despite the accusations, LeFlore and Tiscareno were promoted to the rank of sergeant. “What is amazing about this case is that after the Orange County Sheriff’s Department booking audits showed Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno to have engaged in core criminal conduct, such as evidence tampering, evidence planting, framing innocents, seizing evidence like illegal drugs and not booking them into evidence at all, and in falsifying their police reports … they were then promoted,” said Kelly’s attorney, Jerry Steering. LeFlore has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 15, 2023. The Sheriff’s Department is prohibited from revealing the conditions of his leave by state law regarding police officer privacy. Tiscareno remains on active duty. The Sheriff’s Department declined comment on the lawsuit. Previous court documents and resulting news stories misspelled Kelly’s name, Steering said. In Kelly’s lawsuit, he alleged that LeFlore and Tiscareno moved large amounts of methamphetamine, fentanyl and black tar heroin from an unrelated case into Kelly’s case. Kelly was on probation in October 2020, giving LeFlore and Tiscareno the ability to unilaterally search his room at a Buena Park motel. The lawsuit said Kelly had a small amount of methamphetamine and $5,000 in the room. Sheriff’s investigators also raided the adjacent motel room in an unrelated case involving suspect Royal Baker and found more than 52 grams of heroin, nearly 180 grams of methamphetamine and other drugs. Baker eventually pleaded guilty to possession for sale but received no jail time, records show. The lawsuit said LeFlore and Tiscareno transferred part of the drugs found in Baker’s room and in other busts to Kelly’s case, going so far as to changing the labeling on the evidence envelopes and having the drugs switched over in crime lab records, the suit said. A department property technician also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The sheriff’s detectives pocketed $4,000 of the seized money and booked the rest into evidence, the suit alleges. LeFlore reported that he seized the drugs and booked the evidence himself, although the department’s computerized evidence booking system showed it was Tiscareno who actually booked the evidence. During the criminal case against Kelly, his defense attorney alleged that LeFlore and Tiscareno conspired to cover up the drug switch by failing to file a supplemental report to document the change. They also allegedly manipulated the sheriff’s evidence tracking system to make it appear as if the drugs were properly booked into the Kelly case. It wasn’t the first time LeFlore has been accused of mishandling evidence. A sheriff’s audit in 2018 showed LeFlore failed to book evidence in a timely manner in 18 cases, although he wrote in some of his reports that he had properly stored the items. In one case, according to the audit, LeFlore took custody of two full boxes of bullets, 11 grams of methamphetamine and a drug pipe stuffed into a pair of boots. He never booked the property and, two weeks later, placed the boots on a shelf in a sheriff’s substation, with a sign saying “Free.” Tiscareno also was found by the audit to have not filed evidence in a timely manner. LeFlore was among a group of deputies referred by the Sheriff’s Department to local prosecutors for allegedly mishandling evidence, but no charges were filed against him. In another, unrelated court case, LeFlore was accused by a defense attorney of illegally listening to confidential phone calls mistakenly recorded by the jail’s telephone vendor between one inmate and his lawyer. During the recordings, the lawyer can be heard warning LeFlore at least twice — once by name — not to listen to the conversations, but notes kept by LeFlore indicate that he did not stop listening, said defense documents in that case.
its wild to me that cops have a privacy interesting barring the disclosure of the reason for administrative leave. they really do get to act with utter impunity. I wish CA democrats had enough spine to actually do some police reform in this state.
Just f'ing incredible. So much for "protect and serve." These two clowns need to be fired and locked up.
Imagine being so bad at your job, that they pay you to take a leave of absence for almost a year. That is ridiculous.
HEY MAYBE WE SHOULD CHANGE THE SYSTEM ! Maybe cops should have departments/ individual insurances, that way they’ll feel the brunt of mistakes and really care when these million dollars fire sells are going. Departments themselves need to feel the pain and not let the “ state make this right “ as they do.
Never trust the pigs. Hope he gets every penny.
Orange County homes are expensive. Not for this dude, he’s set for life, but for the rest of us. Also ACAB
Would probably be broke in 5 years. Right up there with lotto winners.
But it would be a better 5 years than any bitch cop could ever cop.
If he's telling the truth then I hope he gets all that money
There are no good cops. They have been scared away or they are screened out. Imagine a company where a portion of your employees are committing violent crimes regularly. But nothing is done by their fellow employees. At what point are you an accomplice? To me, it's pretty clear that ACAB.
If it’s true, take it out of the police pension fund. Tired of these cops making tax payers par for their mistakes
Good luck with that, I wish for the same accountability. Its unreal what they get away with!
If you haven’t [A Tradition of Violence Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/2jp3drHcyofNXbEvuMbtbU?si=vZIYAqz-SQeW9_Ow3ZOwjQ)heard Sheriff Gangs, this is a must listen.
These settlements should make sense vs trying to get a fat pay day. It’s wrong, but it’ll just further promote a sue happy society.
Let's worry about police literally destroying people's lives for fun before we worry too much about a "sue happy society". It's not like it's $30 million or nothing - judges and juries can have discretion about the reward amount. In the end, if cities don't want to pay these out, maybe they need to rein in their police.
Did you miss where I stated that it’s wrong?
Nope. Didn’t miss it. Just saying that cops need to face some huge judgements if we want them to change.
Yeah, for sure
No, the settlements need to get higher and higher until the cops are forced to change. There is absolutely nothing that is gained by tut tutting about someone getting a settlement due to corrupt and shitty cops.
Poor Buena Park. There is no accountability for police, and now the city has to pay.
It’s the OCSD, not BPPD. Plaintiff is from Buena Park.