Local cops assist with LA unrest




The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and other local law agencies sent deputies and officers to Los Angeles to help respond to riots and looting over the weekend.

VCSO Capt. Eric Buschow said it is part of a long-standing mutual aid agreement between first responders in California. Ventura County has been the recipient of similar aid during major emergencies, such as the Thomas, Woolsey and Hill fires, as well as the mass shooting in November 2018 at Borderline Bar and Grill.

To ensure one agency doesn’t have to supply all the officers, the request is shared with the Ventura, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Santa Paula and Hueneme police departments. Small departments, such as those that serve the community college district, are also part of the pool of available officers. Buschow said the sheriff’s office can also call upon the investigators of the district attorney’s office, all of whom are sworn officers.

The captain said there are two ways the mutual aid works. The first is for a fire or police department to call a neighboring agency within their county for assistance. He said any police officers sent from a county agency would go with a superior officer, like a sergeant, who would then work under the command of the police agency in whose jurisdiction they were assigned.

Cmdr. Steve Shorts said eight SVPD officers and one sergeant were assigned to escort firefighters and assist in other ways in Los Angeles last weekend.

In Ventura County, the sheriff’s office coordinates the mutual aid response.

Buschow would not comment on how many California cities local police officers were sent to because, he said, there are groups monitoring law enforcement numbers online looking for additional cities to target for looting.

“We know that some of the groups that are out there, and I don’t even want to refer to them as protesters, thrive in these types of environments to cause problems. The vast majority of the people out there are going to these locations to protest and express their outrage of what happened, and that’s a cornerstone of our democracy. But anarchists, or whatever you want to call them, specifically take advantage of the chaos to damage property and to steal and set fire to buildings.”

The captain said these groups are “more organized than people give them credit for,” and pointed to what he called “orchestrated looting events” throughout L.A.

Bushow said the county will often send its tactical response team to other cities because they come from throughout the sheriff’s department and are trained to respond to a variety of problems, including civil unrest.