Ex-deputies involved in Guardado shooting indicted federally in separate abuse case
Two former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been indicted for violating the civil rights of a skateboarder they allegedly forced into the back of their cruiser and threatened with violence before crashing the vehicle in 2020, prosecutors announced Thursday.
According to an indictment unsealed Thursday morning, Miguel Vega and Chris Hernandez — who were also involved in the controversial 2020 killing of 18-year-old Andres Guardado — were charged with conspiracy, witness tampering, falsification of records and deprivation of rights. They are expected to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.
Late Wednesday, an attorney for Vega declined to comment before seeing the indictment. Thursday morning, neither he nor an attorney representing Hernandez could be reached.
“Officers who abuse their power must be held accountable, and my office is committed to prosecuting violations of civil rights by those who violate their oaths and victimize those who they were sworn to protect,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for Los Angeles, said in a statement.
If convicted as charged, both former deputies face decades in prison.
News of the charges comes exactly three years after the two deputies allegedly snatched 24-year-old Jesus Alegria off the street and took him for a wild ride that left him bleeding from the head. Both Vega and Hernandez were eventually stripped of their badges.
But the Sheriff’s Department waited at least two months to respond to Alegria’s allegations, leaving Vega on the streets in June 2020, when he shot Guardado in the back five times following a brief foot chase in Gardena. The two deputies remained on active duty until December 2020.
Guardado’s killing led to widespread protests and a lawsuit filed by his family against the county that was settled for $8 million. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has not yet said publicly whether it will file charges in the Guardado case, though records reviewed by The Times show that a prosecutor initially recommended against it last year. A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office has said prosecutors would announce findings this month.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $47.6 million to settle several lawsuits over allegations of misconduct by sheriff’s deputies
The case stemming from Alegria’s allegations against Vega and Hernandez, however, was never sent to the district attorney’s office and was instead routed directly to federal prosecutors after an initial criminal investigation, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the situation. The district attorney’s office did not respond to a question about why the case went directly to federal investigators.
On April 13, 2020, Alegria was skateboarding in a park in Compton when Vega and Hernandez pulled up. According to Alegria, the deputies approached a group of teens, and Alegria and his friends shouted at them to stop harassing the kids.
The deputies turned around and exchanged words with the skateboarders before one of them — Vega — grabbed Alegria and shoved him into the back of a patrol car. Alegria later told The Times that the deputy didn’t handcuff him or ask his name.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies involved in a controversial shooting are under investigation for an encounter with a skateboarder, who accuses the deputies of lying to cover up misconduct.
Instead, he said, the deputies taunted him.
“We’re gonna get you set up right now,” one said, threatening to kick him out of the car in a gang-controlled neighborhood and tell people on the street that he belonged to a rival gang.
The deputies continued to taunt him and curse at him, Alegria said. A few minutes later, they spotted a group of young teenagers on bikes and steered toward them. Hernandez jumped out and chased some of them on foot, while Vega sped down an alley after one of them.
According to Alegria, as the biker wove past a parked car and a concrete wall, Vega accelerated, hitting both the wall and a parked BMW.
By Alegria’s estimate, they’d been traveling 55-60 mph at the time of the crash, though Vega later told authorities he’d been driving 30-35 mph. According to an incident report, the speed limit was 15 mph. After the wreck, the patrol vehicle was damaged enough that, instead of opening the door, Vega had to climb out a window. He surveyed the scene and told Alegria to leave.
“Get the f— out of here,” he said, according to Alegria. As he walked away, Alegria realized there was blood dripping down his face from a gash on his eyebrow.
When California Highway Patrol officers arrived at the scene — an alley near Mona Boulevard and 130th Street in Willowbrook — Vega told them he had gone in pursuit of a bicyclist he suspected of carrying a gun.
Authorities blocked off the street, but when a deputy again spotted Alegria walking in the area, he grabbed the man and put him in handcuffs without explaining why. Deputies let him sit in the back of a patrol car for more than half an hour, then drove him to a hospital where, according to Alegria, they pressured him to sign a citation to appear in court for being under the influence of meth.
“I didn’t wanna sign it because I know my truth: I’ve never even touched that drug in my life,” he told The Times. But when Alegria called his father for advice, his father persuaded him to sign the paper so he could go home and avoid further harassment in jail.
In the arrest report describing the incident, Vega wrote that Alegria had been acting erratically and seemed to be on drugs when the deputies first spotted him. A “large crowd” was advancing toward them, he said, and they didn’t feel that they could safely conduct a sobriety test so they fled before either deputy had time to handcuff Alegria or fasten his seatbelt.
A video recorded by one of Alegria’s friends called that account into question, and Vega made no mention of chasing an armed bicyclist in his report.
Though the Sheriff’s Department sent the case against Alegria to the district attorney’s office, prosecutors declined to file charges. In early 2021, Alegria filed a lawsuit accusing Vega and Hernandez of fabricating the drug charge and the arrest report to justify their reckless behavior. Last year, the county agreed to settle for $450,000.
By that point, Vega and Hernandez had already come under fire for their role in the Guardado killing in June 2020.
Two months after the Alegria incident, the deputies were on patrol when they came upon Guardado talking with someone outside an auto body shop. The Sheriff’s Department said Guardado brandished a gun and ran into an alley, and Vega and Hernandez gave chase. An autopsy later showed that Vega shot the teen five times in the back. Vega’s attorney said that was because Guardado was reaching for a gun.
L.A. County coroner’s office determines that Andres Guardado, the 18-year-old killed by an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy, was shot 5 times in the back.
Coming on the heels of George Floyd’s killing, Guardado’s death prompted weeks of protests and increased scrutiny of the Compton sheriff’s station, which has been roiled by allegations about a violent deputy gang known as the Executioners. Following the Guardado shooting, a whistleblower claimed that Vega and Hernandez were prospective members of the group. Their attorneys denied the allegation.
Before the Guardado and Alegria cases, Vega had a history of misconduct allegations, including accusations that he was discourteous and that he used unreasonable force — though the latter of those was found to be without merit. The most serious discipline he faced was in 2017, after he was accused of making false statements in an investigation. He was eventually suspended for four days for the lesser infraction of failing to properly screen an inmate.
Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.
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