Inspector General’s Office Releases Findings On 2020 Santa Clarita Buffalo Wild Wings Gunpoint Detention

The Los Angeles County Office of the Inspector General released a report on the Canyon Country incident in August of 2020 where three Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies were recorded detaining three teenagers at gunpoint, prompting public outcry.

The original incident began at around 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug 7., 2020 when deputies received reports of an assault with a deadly weapon in the parking lot at 19200 Soledad Canyon Road near Whites Canyon Road.

“We received a call regarding an assault with a deadly weapon, a skateboard,” said Lt. Ethan Marquez, with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, at the time.

According to the incident report released by the Office of the Inspector General, the mobile digital computer records shows the call went out to deputies as two male Black adults in their early 20s hitting a male Hispanic with a skateboard. No other weapon was mentioned, the report states.

“It is true several other eyewitnesses on the scene describe seeing the juveniles punch the male Hispanic and hit him with a skateboard, these same eyewitnesses only saw part of the altercation and opined the male Hispanic appeared to have a mental health issue,” the report states.

Multiple calls were made to the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station reporting the incident, however, the report noted that not all statements were taken into account when updating deputies on the incident, due to the fact that other callers “has a better view so we are just going with the other guy right now.”

When deputies arrived on scene, they proceeded to detain several teenagers at gunpoint, with one deputy pointing an AR-15 rifle at the teens. The subsequent social media storm led to complaints filed against the deputies involved, and an investigation by the Los Angeles County Office of the Inspector General.

Tammi Collins, the mother of one of the teens detained, said her son was sitting at a bus stop in Santa Clarita with friends when a man who appeared to be homeless approached the teen.

“He was attacked by a gentleman, homeless guy, who approached them and first asked them if they had any crack then tried to take their things,” Collins said in a social media post.

After making contact, Collins said that the man became aggressive and attempted to stab the teen.

“The guy became so aggressive that he took his shirt off, pulled out a knife and whip (and) tried to stab them,” she wrote.

See Related: Conduct Of Santa Clarita Deputies Under Investigation After Drawing Guns At Teens

The teen and his friends “only had their skateboards to cover them from the knife and whip so they held it out to keep a distance from this guy,” according to Collins.

Based on the review of the documents provided by the Sheriff’s Department for this August 7, 2020 incident, the Office of Inspector General makes the following recommendations:

1. The Sheriff’s Department should revise its policy to make the unholstering and pointing of a firearm a reportable use of force, with requirement for routine monitoring and auditing consistent with the monitoring and auditing of other uses of force.
2. The Sheriff’s Department should revise its patrol rifle policy to include clear guidance as to the proper and improper deployment of a rifle. All deputies should undergo training consistent with any policy revisions. The deputy-involved shooting of Ryan Twyman in June of 2019 also raised concerns about the lack of policy and training on the use of rifles, yet no policy changes were implemented following that shooting.
3. The Sheriff’s Department should diligently document and investigate citizen complaints. A report that is critical of deputy conduct or suggests that conduct fell below the reporting parity’s expectations should be considered a complaint regardless of where the reporting party designates it as a complaint. Resting all such service reports as complaints ensure that there is a record of the conduct and an investigation. Allegations of racial bias should be investigated when race is mentioned
4. The Sheriffs Department must ensure that personnel receiving complaints do not dissuade complainants or comment in a way that might be interpreted as minimizing the comments or discouraging the making of the complaint.
5. The Sheriff’s Department should insist upon compliance with its Manual of Policy and Procedure; personnel directly involved in an incident should not conduct any subsequent inquiry or investigation about that incident.
6. Efforts should be made to document favorable comments and unfavorable comments about the Sheriff’s Department to provide an impartial assessment of facts and evidence
7. The Sheriff’s Department should audio and/or video record all interviews, including interviews of Sheriff’s Department personnel.
8. When documenting an investigation the background of the involved parties should only include relevant information. If a deputy was unaware of a party’s background during an incident, it generally has no bearing on a deputy’s conduct.
9. Labeling the parties to an incident as a suspect or a witness should not be done until the completion of the investigation.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) responded to the suggestions offered in the Office of the Inspector General’s Report, noting that several points that were recorded as “issues” by the report are not required by various LASD handbooks.

In particular, in relation to the focus of the complaint, the report states:

“The focus of the (Watch Commander’s Report) should have been whether the deputies’ actions of pointing guns and rifles at three teenagers were proper based on what they knew at the time of the stop. The (Watch Commander’s Report), however, includes many miscellaneous items such as the teenagers’ background, interview with a male Hispanic (who was not present when the deputies arrived and never spoke to the deputies at the scene), and statements from unrelated parties,” according to the Office for the Inspector General.

In response, the LASD stated that one of the points that the Watch Commander Service Comment Report (WCSCR) is meant to address is “Improper Tactics” in relation to the deployment of guns and rifles, as marked on the relevant form.

“The review sufficiently established that pointing a rifle (and guns) at three Assault with a Deadly Weapon suspects, was within Department Policy,” read the response. “The Sheriff’s Department  is in the process of reviewing policy and the criteria with respect to the deployment of the patrol rifle.”

Following the August 2020 incident, several protesters flocked to the streets to express their disapproval of how deputies handled the situation.

Bre Tomey, who grew up in Santa Clarita and graduated Canyon High School in 2014, was motivated to go out and protest after seeing a video over the weekend that showed deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station drawing guns on a group of teenagers outside of the Buffalo Wild Wings in Canyon Country.

“When a person calls for help and that person is a person of color, you don’t point a gun at them until you figure out what happened,” Tomey said in a previous KHTS story.

To read the full report, click here.

Ed. Note: Louie Diaz contributed to this article.

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