by Lee Williams
The U.S. Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section describes itself merely as one of several sections working within the Civil Rights Division.
In truth, they are much more than that.
The Special Litigation Section was created to protect people in several areas, including those in jails or prisons, individuals with disabilities, confined youth and “people who interact with state or local police or sheriffs’ departments.”
This last bit is why Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Justice Department to investigate the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department for violating their residents’ Second Amendment rights. The DOJ will definitely send in its Special Litigation Section. They are pros at investigating cops, and Bondi hinted they may have more agencies to review.
“As part of a broader review of restrictive firearms-related laws in California and other States, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division today announced an investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to determine whether it is engaging in a pattern or practice of depriving ordinary, law-abiding Californians of their Second Amendment rights,” Bondi’s press release states.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna, who became the department’s 34th Sheriff just 17 months ago, has more than 17,000 staffers, sworn and non-sworn. Luna became sheriff after a 36-year career at the Long Beach Police Department, where he served as Chief. However, should the Special Litigation Section get the case, there is absolutely nothing he can do to prevent them from determining whether his staff were, as Bondi described in her press release, “engaging in a pattern or practice of depriving ordinary, law-abiding Californians of their Second Amendment rights.”
Sheriff Luna may try to slow the federal investigators’ progress and keep them from finding and reporting the truth, which would be futile. What Bondi didn’t say is that the Special Litigation Section has never lost a case – not a single one.
When the Section has completed its investigation, which can take months or even years, they present the Sheriff or Chief of Police with two documents: a federal complaint and a consent decree. The two documents are virtually identical except for their titles. If the chief law enforcement executive doesn’t sign the consent decree and agree to make substantive changes to their agency, the investigators file the complaint in federal court where, as stated, they always win.
Bondi was very clear about the allegations she believes were committed by the LASD. Their deputies can take more than 18 months to process concealed handgun license applications. She pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has strengthened the Second Amendment, which it considers a “fundamental, individual constitutional right,” but the LASD still has issues.
“This Department of Justice will not stand idly by while States and localities infringe on the Second Amendment rights of ordinary, law-abiding Americans,” Bondi said. “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and under my watch, the Department will actively enforce the Second Amendment just like it actively enforces other fundamental constitutional rights.”
Regan Rush, Special Litigation Section Chief, did not respond to emails seeking her comments for this story.
Much of how her staff operates is withheld from the public, but the best way to judge the Section’s effectiveness is by taking a close look at how they operated in the past.
Previous consent decrees
In March 2003, I was an investigative reporter at the Virgin Islands Daily News. I wrote “Deadly Force–A Special Investigative Report,” which was 44-pages long and examined the Virgin Islands Police Department’s shootings from January 1985 to December 2003.
It found:
- In the 85 shooting incidents reviewed, 65 of the victims were unarmed.
- The 85 police shootings resulted in the deaths of 28 people.
- Only 17 of the 72 people who were shot at by the police and survived were charged.
- VIPD records unit lacked information about involved officers and shooting victims and the findings of any investigation into the shootings.
- VIPD employed an outdated use of force policy that failed to provide officers with clear guidelines regarding the circumstances under which the use of deadly force would be justified and included illegal guidance indicating that deadly force could be used to protect property.
- Although VIPD required officers to pass an annual firearms certification examination, VIPD had not conducted annual weapons certifications for more than two years.
- In at least six cases VIPD officers shot at moving vehicles.
This Justice Department did not like the special report’s findings at all.
“The report included descriptions of 77 cases in which either officers had allegedly pointed or fired their weapons under questionable circumstances or the case files related to the shooting incidents contained little or no information reflecting that any investigation of the use of force was conducted. The report also summarized 20 cases in which VIPD officers, often off-duty at the times of the incidents, brandished or fired weapons during personal arguments or fights,” the DOJ said in a press release. “The disturbing and unflattering portrait presented by the ‘Deadly Force’ report was one of a police department whose officers were poorly trained, too quick to use firearms, and immune from serious consequences for improper and in some cases illegal uses of deadly force. The article called for various actions to be taken in response to its findings, including an investigation by the Special Litigation Section of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.”
The Special Litigation Section and the VIPD signed a consent decree a few years after the news was published. However, today – more than 22 years after the first story was published – the VIPD still remains under close federal supervision because they have not made adequate changes to a series of consent decrees to end the civil case.
Two consent decrees in Delaware had opposite results. Delaware’s state government was able to make changes and avoid decades of federal inspections and supervision for problems I found in its prison system and psychiatric center, which it cleaned up in just a few years.
How LASD’s Sheriff Luna will respond is not yet known, but it may be difficult for him. The best advice is to quickly realize he is no longer in charge. The DOJ is. Hopefully, he will stop his deputies from depriving residents of their Second Amendment rights.
If Sheriff Luna doesn’t act soon, he may become just another unemployed top lawman who lost his job because he underestimated the Justice Department’s little-known but powerful Special Litigation Section.
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Luna did not just “become” Sheriff here. His predecessor Alex Villanueva pretty much had his own “come to Jesus” moment during our 2020 Summer of Love and the Ant!fa set-streets-on-fire madness, and began behaving like a conservative. Our County’s hierarchy isn’t like most across the nation, in that our system here has evolved to where our L.A. Board of Supervisors (consisting of five liberal females at the time) exercises control over our Sheriff, who is not</b the last say for law enforcement over his community like Sheriffs are elsewhere. Basically, Villanueva opened up our CCW Unit to applications from public citizens, and publicly defied the Board’s COVID mask mandate. That defiance by a man
triggeredangered those five females, and they shifted their support to Luna during the next election in 2022, where Luna squeaked by. Luna, a veteran of the LBPD where he served as Chief for 20 years (and let’s remember that a Police Chief is appointed by a Mayor, not elected by his community like a Sheriff is) has a history of publicly stating his disdain for non-LE citizens bearing arms. He firmly believes in the model of “I have a badge and can carry, but you cannot because I don’t trust you, 2nd Amendment be damned.”And here we are in 2025.
Let’s see if Blondi and Patel can bring as much whoop a$$ to the 2nd Amendment as their predecessors did to the Voting Rights Act in the south or school desegregation? Remember a right delayed is a right denied. I won’t hold my breath.
P.S. the Justice Department made local school districts build & remodel schools. Can we get some new or updated shooting ranges? I doubt it…
Nonsense.
Police and Law Enforcement are most honorable and hold themselves to the highest standards of integrity.
It’s not like they would walk off of the shooting range with a forgotten box of ammunition intentionally. I’m certain the good and honest officer returned them upon discovering his mistake.
Collecting citizens firearms is not a hobby, it’s keeping “those people” out of trouble with weapons they shouldn’t have had in the first place.
Support Your Local Law Enforcement.
It’s the thin blue line that stands between you and injustice.
The SLS did those Virgin Island investigations in or around 2003? So let’s see, that would have been under US Attorney General John Ashcroft, if I did my research correctly, right? So that’s going to be under W’s first administration.
Makes sense. I can’t see Barr, Sessions, Lynch, Holder, or Garland investigating the violations of any unwashed citizen’s Constitutional Rights, can you?
Well, I too won’t hold my breath, but Bondi deserves a shot, bad pun intended. I hope we see somebody in Califailya government go to prison.
It”s only twenty seven words for crying out loud. For a reason. Now why do you think that is?
Yes, it’s only 27 words for a reason. But 27 words or 27 encyclopedias of words, we have people who can’t take it at face value. Or who reject it for whatever reason, be it poor education, an inability to reason logic, or ulterior/evil motives.
I think it’s the education one and the evil one mostly, because it’s the evil who want to hurt us and the dumb who want to let them.
So now we must oppose those people…the evil and the dumb, that is.
What are you doing to oppose those people? Other than counting words, I mean, because words and word counts will not protect your constitutional rights by themselves.
What’s your plan of action, Huntmaster? Asking for a friend.
To confuse people who get lost after six words?
Well, we can make witticisms and jokes all day long. Meanwhile, our opponents see that as our weakness, and they continue their money moving and their planning and implementing their vision of government control over all of us. Sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly with paid chaos actors. Sometimes peacefully, often not so much; especially when they control the levers of power and its bank account.
See how Minor isn’t around much? No money to pay him, so he goes dormant, like so many on that side. But somebody will find money to spend, and then Minor will be back for a couple weeks, to distract us and to water down our efforts.
The shame of it all is that it’s YOUR money and mine…our taxes, that is, that go to the NGOs, and from there to pay the chaos actors. We are paying for our own demise, and we prioritize it by prognosticating about 27 words.
If you’re serious, no one pays any attention anyway because the Right side of the aisle is lazy and entitled.
Try talking to people about taxes. LOL! Virtually no one wants a serious conversation, it’s too much work. You have to actually know something about the topic and even then people who have really gone down the rabbit hole make you look bad. That’s why you scream at them that they’re stupid kids who don’t know anything and go back to sportsball.
Just look at the “tariffs debate” for an example of this. People are big mad or big happy but nearly none of them have a clue what’s going on and come at it from a base ideological position that puts retirees, Lolberts and Leftists all in the same camp.
Until that changes, I’ll add humor where I like because it doesn’t matter anyway. Just look at how the Senate is dealing with budget issues for an example of why.
On the topic of trolls, I assume that Miner/Minor/Myner doesn’t show up any more because they mod him. Pretty obvious that the new comment section sends everything to moderation for review and that the “review section” is checked about twice a day by a person. That’s a system that ticks off everyone who’s a regular but it is darn hard to beat.
As for money going to this sort of thing… cutting that off won’t change much at this point. The entire NGO system is set up in a manner that’s meant to use seed money to start and then be mostly self funding afterwards. That’s how they’re still functioning. As I’ve pointed out before, if you look at how much money Soros was giving out, he can’t afford that much annually yet his net worth didn’t drop. That’s because part of it was USAID money flowing through an organization known as “Fair & Just Prosecutions”. However, F&JP still has loads of money coming in because there are whole investment groups that fund this sort of thing. They were set up for that purpose.
Much like USAID gave the seed money to start SF operations in Laos but that whole thing rapidly became mostly self funding via the heroin trade.
It’s only twenty-seven words long for crying out loud. There’s a reason.
One word for each letter of the alphabet is my guess.
Yes, the Not, in Shall Not Be Infringed is the eliminated extra.
One word for each letter of the alphabet is my guess.
Yes, the Not, in Shall Not Be Infringed is the eliminated extra.
I’m incredibly underwhelmed. I was beside myself when Gaetz was withdrawn. Every time I see that self-promoting woman on Fox News (practically every night), it’s like she’s twisting the knife. Gaetz would have been a hammer as AG. If they got Hegseth confirmed, I don’t see how they wouldn’t have been able to get Gaetz through.
Instead we get half-stepping AG Barbie.
Test.
Let’s see if Blondi and Patel bring the same firepower to defending the 2nd Amendment as their predecessors did when tackling the Voting Rights Act in the South or pushing school desegregation. After all, a delayed right is still a denied right. But hey, I’m not holding my breath.
P.S. The Justice Department once made school districts upgrade and rebuild schools—think we’ll see them invest in modern shooting ranges? Yeah… probably not.
I’d also like to see the ATF and FBI investigate LAPD for their violation of federal law by transferring firearms to prohibited persons. LAPD has started using non-citizens as police officers — including illegal immigrants — all of whom are armed with pistols provided to them by LAPD.
LAPD claims that this is legal because the guns still belong to the department not the individual officers. This tap-dance was dubious enough at the start of the program when the prohibited persons were cadets in the police academy and had the guns only while training and only under supervision — but now these prohibited persons are fully certified police officers who have their LAPD-provided pistols 24/7 both on and off duty.
Bottom line: LAPD is knowingly providing guns to prohibited persons in willful violation of federal law.