One of the county's larger recent use-of-force settlements comes with an unusual wrinkle: the county's own investigators had largely backed the deputies.
The settlement
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $9.6 million payment to settle a wrongful-death suit filed on behalf of the children of Samuel Herrera Jr., a 41-year-old Compton man killed by sheriff's deputies, LAist reported. The county did not admit liability. The size of the payout is notable given that a county counsel report on the shooting largely contradicted the family's version of events.
The 2020 shooting
Deputies arrived at a Compton home before dawn in September 2020 to serve a search warrant, believing Herrera was selling methamphetamine and had a firearm, according to the county counsel report cited by LAist. That account says deputies fired after hearing what they believed were gunshots and seeing what looked like a gun barrel, and again when Herrera emerged and made a sudden movement "as if to shoot." The county medical examiner found he had been struck by gunfire multiple times; deputies reported recovering firearm magazines nearby. The family's lawsuit told a different story, alleging Herrera was unarmed and posed no reasonable threat, that he was targeted in part because of his ethnicity, and that some deputies involved belonged to a gang-like clique within the department. The Herald is attributing each account to its source; the competing versions were not resolved by the settlement.
Prior reviews
Official reviews did not fault the deputies. A 2021 coroner's inquest did not conclude they acted improperly, and a separate review by the district attorney's office found the shooting was within the law. No deputy was publicly disciplined or criminally charged, according to the available reporting.
The backdrop of deputy cliques
The lawsuit's clique allegation touches a long-documented problem in the Sheriff's Department. The county's watchdogs have identified numerous such subgroups over the department's history, tied to tens of millions of dollars in legal payouts, and the department in 2021 adopted a policy formally banning deputy gangs; the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission later issued a slate of reform recommendations whose implementation is still being tracked. The department has said it does not tolerate gang-like behavior and, in this case, denied that Herrera was targeted because of his race. The Herrera settlement adds to a running tally of county payouts in use-of-force cases — money that comes, ultimately, from taxpayers.
