Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna is seeking reelection and faces the man he unseated, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, and three in his own department.
In all, the June 2 primary has eight candidates who want to oversee the agency’s 10,000-plus deputies.
With voters, perception is in play, said Frank Vram Zerunyan, a professor who specializes in governance practices in USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.
But to be successful the winner must turn around and persuade other leaders to provide help — such as money.
“The expectation of the community is a strong level of public safety,” said Zerunyan, who is also the mayor of Rolling Hills Estates. “But, unfortunately, that expectation does not necessarily match the political side of public safety and the funding side of public safety.
“The top guy or woman — whoever it may be — the job will be to convince and persuade the purse holders of the importance of funding. … They (police agencies) need people.”
All eight candidates for sheriff have worked in the department at one time, and all but one talked with the Southern California News Group about their candidacies.
They are listed in the order they appear on the ballot:
Alex Villanueva
Villanueva, who served as sheriff from 2018 to 2022, says he wants to re-establish a culture where deputies are supported. With a campaign slogan of “Help is on the Way,” Villanueva said he would focus on deputy health by reducing overtime and increasing the staffing of the department by making it a place where deputies want to work.
Villanueva’s endorsements include the Los Angeles Republican Party and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Professional Association, one of two deputy unions.
He joined the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in 1986, retiring as a lieutenant before getting elected sheriff in 2018.
Deputy gangs, he says, are not an issue in the department — instead, the topic is but “political talk,” adding he didn’t, and wouldn’t, tolerate deputy misconduct.
“When you fire as many people as I did, the people that are claiming that I tolerate misconduct were just lying because they created the narrative ‘deputy gangs,’ they created the narrative that I didn’t hold people accountable,” he said. “I say, show me who are they. No one can. Do you realize that (no one has) identified a single deputy gang member?”
He said people in jail who are in the country illegally should get deported.
“Let’s stop playing games here, and let’s not get involved in obstructing federal immigration,” he said. “I’d much rather have them (federal agents and officers) figure that out there in the jail than chasing people through car washes or strawberry fields, because that was just ridiculous.”
He wants his job back.
“I did the job right in 2018, and in 2026 I need to get back to building this department back up,” Villanueva said. “It will not survive four more years under Luna. So public safety is on the ballot right now.”
Andre White
White, 34, joined the department in 2014 and is a gang detective, according to his campaign website. He wants to modern the department’s technology, increase hiring from the communities the department serves, work on community building and increasing accountability in policies, hiring and investigations.
Attempts to interview him were unsuccessful.
Oscar Martinez
A lieutenant, the 45-year-old has been with the Sheriff’s Department since 2008 and worked in custody, patrol, professional standards and public information and served as a chief’s executive aide.
He aims to make the department more responsive to people, rather than just a county bureaucracy.
“Deputies are scared,” he said. “They’re scared of not the suspect. They’re not scared of running into a building that’s on fire to save someone, they’re scared of their own leadership.
“They should feel supported. They should not be looking behind themselves all the time,” he said. “At the same time, I do believe that those who commit wrong, that violate policy or especially if they break the law, that they need to be held accountable.”
Martinez said fostering a supportive environment will increase recruitment, as satisfied deputies and professional staffers will suggest working in the department to friends and family members, and Martinez’s vision of deputy culture will also help with retention, he said.
“The Sheriff’s Department has been here since 1850 and,” he said, “I don’t think we need reform, we need a reset. I want people to know I am here to make this department better and, once again, responsive to ‘we the people,’ and not to the establishment the way it is now under Robert Luna.”
Robert Luna
Luna, 60, pointed out that crime went down during his first term, along with use-of-force episodes in the jails. A second term under him would bring continuity in leadership, he said, especially important as the county prepares to host the Olympics, the Paralympics, the Super Bowl, and the World Cup.
“I want to continue on the trajectory I’m on to gain full compliance with all of the federal settlement agreements and court orders that I inherited when I walked into the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “I want to continue to evolve with discipline, risk management and gang-like behavior that has been, again, very well documented in the Sheriff’s Department. I want to continue to modernize our department.”
His endorsements include all five members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles Democratic Party, and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the other deputy union serving the department.
Before becoming sheriff, Luna worked for the Long Beach Police Department for 36 years, including seven as the department’s chief of police.
Luna said he is in negotiations for raises within the department, and he is putting in place strategies to continue boosting the hiring and retention of deputies. He had body-worn cameras added to deputies working in the jails, he said.
Luna has asked the county’s board of supervisors for money to upgrade custody facilities, and he said he oversaw the addition of new mental-health intake screening for the county jail system and a pilot program for health-monitoring bracelets for inmates.
“I’ve made significant progress and I need more time to continue on the path that I’m on,” he said.
“I do this job because I am a person of faith and I am here to serve. I don’t do this for the money. I don’t do this for the status. I do it because I love my community. And if I wasn’t doing this, I’d find something else to serve. I care about the people. I care about our law enforcement profession. And I lay it all on the field. It’s 24-seven. I love what I do.”
Mike Bornman
A retired captain, he spent 36 years with the department, which he says is struggling with historically low morale and has an immediate need to address retention.
“They’re getting them in and they’re training them,” said Bornman, 71. “But as soon as they get off training and they’re able, they are hightailing out and going to other agencies, and they’re lateraling out and probably picking up a signing bonus, going in the other door.
“And that tells me it’s not that they don’t want to be cops anymore. They don’t want to be cops for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.”
He would call for a forensic audit of the department to address mismanagement and an overreliance on overtime.
“I want to look at the organization from top to bottom,” he said. “I think that we may be misspending money just by having people in the wrong spot.”
To address custody deaths in Los Angeles County jails, Bornman wants to increase staffing and drug searches, look at contracting with outside hospitals and treatment centers for ill and addicted people in jail, up the number of custody assistants working in jails alongside deputies and replacing Men’s Central Jail, a facility he described as “archaic” and one that “has outlived its usefulness.”
As Los Angeles prepares to host a number of high-profile sporting events in the coming years, Bornman says upping the number of personnel is critical.
“You have to be professional about it, and you have to do what’s ultimately best for the county of Los Angeles, the people of the county of Los Angeles and, for me, the Sheriff’s Department and the people in the Sheriff’s Department — those are my goals,” he said.
“I can provide … the leadership the department needs, without the chaos, without the disruption, without the division, without the poor morale, without the endless overtime,” Bornman said. “People are going to see a sheriff who does sheriff-ing, and I don’t play politics.”
Karla Carranza
A 21-year veteran in the department and now a sergeant, Carranza, 46, says deputies would benefit from fresh leadership who can prioritize the agency’s future.
She wants to focus on community policing and fostering a relationship between deputies and the communities they serve.
The department’s technology needs updating, particularly the dispatch system, she said, in order to best support deputies. Closing the Men’s Central Jail, which she said is an unsafe facility, would be prioritized. Looking at what the department could offer officers for competitive salaries and retirement is critical to retention, Carranza said.
“That’s what’s important for us, to see what we can offer our officers where there’s a balance with work and home … to keep retention,” she said.
Addressing homelessness in the county should come from addressing any crimes first, increasing staffing for resources for homeless people and having the Sheriff’s Department work in close partnership with the county, she said.
“I do believe that the crime has to be addressed first, and in order for us to address the crime, we need an updated and better jail system,” she said.
We cannot be working in the conditions that we are, that we have in the jails today.”
“I’ve been a leader since I joined the department,” Carranza said. “I continue working with the communities … with the boots on the ground, listening and seeing what is needed in each of our communities. So I’m there. I’m present.”
Brendan Corbett
Corbett, 66, began working in the Sheriff’s Department in 1985. During his 37 years there, he worked K-9 and SWAT and served as an assistant sheriff before retiring.
“What I see happening in my beloved department right now is why I’m coming back to try to right the ship, for lack of a better term — breaks in my heart, I’m seeing our community suffer,” he said. “Communities aren’t safe. Our department is suffering. You know, we’re not addressing the homeless like we should. We’re not addressing crime like we should.”
His experience high up in department leadership and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic in the jails and familiarity with how immigration enforcement intersects with the county jails informs his plans, Corbett said.
“ICE agents serve no purpose in the jail,” he said. “An ICE agent being in there, their presence in there, does nothing but gives anxiety to an undocumented person in our custody of care” and scare off friends and family members who would otherwise visit.
“We need to do a realignment and a reassessment of our department to get more deputies on the front line, in a radio car in our communities, in the jails, protecting the individuals in our care. And you do that, you got to tighten the belt for a while.”
He also advocates bolstering the department’s reserves, connecting with communities through advisory councils, increasing deputy engagement with the community.
For those in jail who face homelessness, he would address medical needs and mental health and create a coalition of resources to work with people when they are released from jail to pull them out of cycles of homelessness, addiction and violence.
Corbett says that deputy gangs do not exist in the department, that in the past cliques and subgroups have existed, and that focus on the issue has eroded public trust and deputies’ morale. Educating department staff about behavioral expectations and anti-hazing and ensuring accountability is key to showing the public that the issue has been dealt with, he said.
“I have the experience, and I have the plan,” he said.
Eric Strong
He worked for the Compton and Pasadena police departments before joining the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in 2000, where he worked a myriad of assignments, including internal-affairs investigations and unit commander of patrol and specialized units. He also served as chief of the Los Angeles County Probation Department.
He wants to implementing a pilot program to effectively respond to mental-health and substance-abuse problems. The Sheriff’s Department could take the lead in addressing homelessness.
He wants behavioral-health technicians, clinicians and social workers in the field, connecting those in need with resources, and to allow deputies to go handle crimes rather than spending hours on mental-health calls.
Strong also says he could change department culture.
“People are not leaving because the work is too difficult,” he said of outgoing department employees. “People are leaving because they don’t want to be in this, in a system that’s built on cronyism, that’s vindictive, that’s not supportive, and the employees are not valued — they’re going elsewhere. That’s a cultural change that we make.”
Policy alone does not dictate behavior, Strong said, so a shift in culture is necessary. Strong suggests legitimizing and standardizing station tattoos, making a design readily available if deputies want to pay homage to their workplace, as other departments across the nation do.
“I care about people,” Strong said. “I care that there’s this us-versus-them in law enforcement and society. … I also have the compassion, the empathy and the care for people to do a much better job than what we’ve seen (in leadership by the sheriff) in the past.”