Video showing ex-LAPD detective using racial slur prompts case review

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon said his office will review 370 past cases handled by a retired Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective who apparently on cellphone video uses a racial slur during an argument after a crash in Valencia.

Video posted on Twitter and shows a man who is apparently a former detective demanding the other man, who is Black, provide his driver’s license.

There is considerable noise at the beginning of the video, so it is difficult to hear who used the racial slur first, but the former detective said he used it after the other man used it. The other man is heard using the slur toward the former detective at least once before the video cuts off.

“The video in question is disturbing & involves a former homicide detective exhibiting racist tendencies,” Gascon wrote on Twitter Tuesday night.

Gascon went on to say his office “is taking immediate action & has identified several cases where this individual was a witness. We are in the process of notifying defense attorneys in such cases.”

The department issued a statement pledging its full cooperation.

“The individual is not a current member of the LAPD and retired in May 2020 as a detective assigned to Operations Central Bureau Homicide,” it says. “To ensure there is no current department nexus to this incident, there has been an internal investigation started.

“What is seen in the video is not reflective of the thousands of hard-working and dedicated men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department,” the statement says.

Neither Gascon or the department identified the retired detective.

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