Both ABC 7 and NBC 4 have story about former LA Sheriff’s deputy Penelope Armstrong who is suing the Sheriff’s Department, claiming she was fired for refusing to go along with what she says was her partner’s false accusation against a man he arrested.
Here’s a clip from the ABC 7 story by Elex Michaelson:
Penelope Armstrong says her partner lied in court about being choked during a chaotic traffic stop, but then she lost her job when she told the truth.
Armstrong says she’s a fourth generation member of law enforcement and was a rare female member working on the streets for the department’s gang unit. She now believes the department is corrupt, sexist, and routinely covers up the truth.
In the incident that Armstrong says led to her firing, her partner apparently grabbed a woman and threw her against their squad car. The partner claims he was then choked by a man nearby. It’s a claim Armstrong says he didn’t bring up until hours afterwards.
“I don’t think it ever happened,” said Armstrong. “I think he’s lying.”
Armstrong refused to back up her partner’s story in court. She said there was pressure put on her by the sheriff’s department to lie. Armstrong eventually testified against her partner and says a jury sided with her, finding the man not guilty of the choking….
Armstrong also alleged corruption in the sheriff’s department “from the top down,” reported ABC 7.
NBC 4, who also had the story (by John Cadiz Klemack with Brandon Lowrery) reported that Armgstrong was fired earlier this year after nearly a decade on the job, because she failed to go along when “top officials at the department told her to change her story to match her partner’s.”
LASD spokesman Steve Whitmore told NBC 4 reporters that the accusations have no merit.
We’ll let you know as we learn more.
Curious what was the Departments actual reason for termination?
What was the time frame between her testimony and termination? At what point did she say it was a lie? Who wrote the report, her or him? Any evidence to support her claim (noted bruising, redness)? And the “Suspect” what did he and the female say?
Not trying to say she is lying, but when a Deputy reads something like this, they are BASIC questions. The media report sounds like LP2M (Larry Parker 2 million). She has some basic creditability (4 generations of Law Enforcement) but to get it over to a convincing belief there has to be more answers and less generic finger pointing.
I am not saying she is a liar, but I would like to see some facts. Mainly the time from the incident, to her saying it did not happen, to the testimony, then termination. How long had she been on the team? What was the make up of her team (were they all RII and she from another Region)? Sadly that could be a significant factor.
Corrupt, sexist, covers up the truth, sounds like the Obama administration.
Nothing to see here people………..
I hope she is smart enough to get a private attorney to represent her.
The Union(s) will do nothing to help her. Unfortunately she will have to endure the situation for years. The Civil Service Commission if she goes that route will just be a rubber stamp for the Department. Good luck in trying to get another job in law enforcement unless she has connections; she will need to get a copy of her POST profile to she what the Department sent to POST. Yes, it will be an up hill battle.
I would apply for unemployment benefits… they will be denied because she broke a regulation, Then she can appeal the decision and possibly be deemed eligible to receive benefits. It worth a try
Another mess and waste of public resources and money. The Department
keeps inflicting wounds on itself time for a change of leadership.
Something is not quite right with this story, it does not make sense on many levels.
Under normal circs I would call and just find out what she was terminated for. However, due to the news report anybody that calls now would be accused of wearing a wire!’LOL I thought I saw Baca wearing a wire protruding from his suit? Naw! That was one of his arms!!
For those of us that have not been following the retaliation cases; we are paying out through the nose!
C: Any more info on what she was fired for?
If this is the incident I’m thinking of, there was a video of it posted to YouTube (am having trouble finding it now but will keep looking). You can see the male deputy getting choked out while the female deputy just stands there talking into her radio. I think she was wearing an OSS jacket, so I’m guessing it’s this incident. I think it happened in CPT. It’s pretty infuriating to watch and just see her standing there.
After watching KABC’s and KNBC’s stories, it appears there is much more information either ex-Deputy Armstrong did not share with the reporters or that she did not share with them and they did not inquire about. If Ms. Armstrong wants to get the facts out there, how about letting those reporters read her Intent and Imposition Letters which typically provide a synopsis of the admin case and also a listing of which MP&P sections she was determined to have violated? Maybe she’s being advised by her attorney to not release that information. But based on what was shown in the TV reports, her very believable allegations of corruption and retaliation (my opinion) are diluted by her apparent reluctance to share all of the important facts about her case.
1033_Go, I think that is exactly the same video. It was taken off YouTube about a year or so ago. The clip shown on ABC7 appears to be part of the same one. The female deputy in that clip was a coward who deserved to be fired. If this claimant is the same female, add liar to the coward label. Hiding behind your patrol car while your partner is in a fight is pure cowardice.
OK everyone: I recall that video and it does not look good for the female deputy. However, until we know for sure, let´s wait until some more facts come out, in my opinion. Sadly, a another kick in our proverbial backside!
10-whatever, right on, you nailed it, that’s exactly what the jury. . . no, wait. . . nevermind!
Guess those 12 jurors were blind, huh?
She has strong values and obviously believed in their motto of “a tradition of service” but maybe didn’t realize it is a tradition of service to LASD and NOT one of service to the community they are supposed to serve! I think the negative comments posted relating to this issue are either posted by other deputies that are part of the LASD BULLY SQUAD or those uninformed agitators that pollute sites like this. Here is an HONEST DEPUTY standing up for an innocent man faced with prison time and she is supported by a jury of 12 unbiased jurors who believed her over her lying partner and what does she get? Fired from her job, loss of pension she has worked almost a decade for, no future of ever being in her chosen career, and the big department bullies going after her. When heros like this female deputy are persecuted so unjustly, no wonder others are intimidated into submission to injustice. I think she should have been commended for her honesty and bravery in taking on her superiors for trying to force her to lie in her report and under oath! Good for her. I hope the community that she protected now will help her as she looks for justice!
Everyone knows how anti-LASD administration I am. Let me get that qualifier through right now before I start to make assertions…
There really isn’t enough detail in this article to know much more than a few things: She got fired. She said she shouldn’t have been. She says there’s department corruption. That’s about all.
IF, and I say that with a HUGE IF (this is speculative on all our parts) IF she is the deputy in the Youtube video that 10-33Go and 1035 are discussing, then she had everything she got coming to her and more.
I watched that video over, and over and over with about six other deputies standing in a semicircle around me. I remember watching the female Deputy screwing around with a cell phone, shifting from foot to foot, and all around doing NOTHING while a swirling mass of hostile and combative people tried to assist a woman break out of the backseat of a LASD radio car.
Another deputy, black guy, if I recall, was frantically running from position to position, trying to stave off the people from pulling this woman out of the back of the radio car, AND trying to make sure he wasn’t blasted from behind with a rock, a bottle, etc.,
We don’t know for sure who the woman in that video was (if someone does, please speak up here), BUT if that is Ms. Armstrong, then she’s lucky fired is all she got, because she left her partner hanging in the wind, and a lot of LASD deputies rightly wouldn’t reward that behavior with anything but wrath.
This could be a different woman. This could be the same woman and the video is either another incident or the video is misleading (as videos often are) I don’t know, I’m trying to be open minded here.
If she is that person in the video in question, she deserved to be fired. And if she deserved to be fired and is making a stink, it’s hurting the cases and chances of all the LASD employees who DIDN’T deserve to be fired. That’s my fear here.
I suppose in a perfect world one might believe that this department is a non biased agency. But this is not the truth and now we have lost our creditability in being fair and impartial in these maters.
My experience with the Intent and Imposition letter is one of the major problems. Whoever writes it is trusting whoever wrote the summary and whoever did the investigation to be giving the facts and just the facts. Trusting, too, that they have turned every stone they could to do an impartial, fair, & unbiased investigation before they recommended this person lose their job, be demoted (oh, excuse me, receive a reduction of rank or removed from bonus position!), days off, slap on the hand etc. That doesn’t happen on this department. You can only hope that the investigator, Sgt, Lt, Capt, Commander, Chief and Sheriff like or think highly of you.
What has happened to us as officers of the law? We are no different than the people who see a portion of an incident or hear a portion of an incident and become judge and jury. No need for court, hang them. I do not know this woman, I was not there, and it is obvious that something more happened, but once again the media plays on our emotions and we follow them right down the yellow brick road.
Calling someone names without all of the information, which in time will come out, is just wrong. (I believe there were some among us who called Sather the same thing [coward, etc] when his story broke, & now the feds are investigating because there is enough evidence to believe he was coerced into writing false statements in his Incident Report. Maybe we should all just take a breath before passing harsh judgments.) Someone who has a chance to work on a detail like that is not a schmuck. If the male deputy wrote a false report and charges are dropped against the suspect is the deputy not basically a liar? What kind of label did he get? Anyone know where he is now ?
Penelope Armstrong is a brave woman, who stood against corruption in the LAPD. She is beautiful, brainy and courageous. There is nothing wrong with her. I am proud of her, because she was treated less than a lady, and I respect all women. I do hope to meet her someday. She can write me at: Leonard White Jr.
P.O. Box 2736, Lancaster, Ca. 93539
yes this is the same female deputy in compton that just stood there watching her partner in a fight while doing absolutely nothing! its pathetic that this is the way she is going to retaliate against a dept that rightly fired her for being a coward.
Wild Turkey: Despite your disclaimer about being anti-Dept-brass, I would suspect from your summary of that video that you are the Chief who fired Deputy Armstrong. I am willing to bet that you and your buddies stood around in a circle watching that video only AFTER a Captain declared Deputy Armstrong a coward, county-wide, via Department email. I am also willing to bet that you “saw” Deputy Armstrong on that video talking on a cell phone and doing nothing while a swirling mass of hostile and combative people tried to pull a suspect out of a patrol car because that was what the Captain falsely reported in his county wide email calling Deputy Armstrong a coward.
If you watched that video with an open mind, or at least a fair intention to see what really happened, you, like the 12 jurors who refused to believe the male deputy’s false report of being grabbed around the neck and choked for a long time, you would see that Deputy Armstrong was initially in the middle of that swirling mass of hostile and combative people trying to help the male deputy control the female who had just been slammed against the patrol car by the male deputy. You would also see that it was this female, who was never under control by either deputy, and not the suspect inside the patrol car, who was eventually lynched by the crowd.
If you actually looked at the video and didn’t just believe what someone else told you the video showed, you would see that Deputy Armstrong was on her radio, requesting assistance (and yes, on the patch, Mr. 10-33-go) and not fooling around with a cell phone. Most importantly, you would see that no member of that crowd put their hands around the male deputy’s neck, choked him for minutes, hit, punched, or kicked him.
Deputy Armstrong testified that she never saw anyone choke her partner. The jury that watched that video agreed that the male deputy was not choked. Her partner even told her, before the video went LASD-viral, thanks to the captain’s county-wide email, that he had no problem with how she handled the incident.
Deputy Armstrong has more balls than any of the male deputies who for years called her names, mocked her, shunned her, and still expected her to lock-step lie for them.
Is there anyone that can confirm whether or not Armstrong was the woman in the video in question? Speak up!
Leonard White: are you an inmate? Sounds like you’re looking for a prison pen-pal dude.
When reached for comment, Sheriff’s Spokesman Steve “Baghdad Bob” Whitmore commented, ” Gang Deputy? The Sheriff’s Department does not have a Gang Unit and there are no gang members in LA County, so as surely as the sun rises, she is clearly lying.”
Yes, the female in the video described was in fact Penelope Armstrong. As far as the jury siding with her, we know that juries ALWAYS get it right. Don’t we, Mr. Simpson?
I’m sorry, I know there are some people on this board that will resent this. And you all know I back up whistle blowers who get punished for doing the right thing…
But that video was terrible. She left her partner all on his own, at the mercy of a violent mob.
“…at the mercy of a violent mob…” ? Looks more like a rugby scrum.
Casualty list:
Shot, tased, stabbed, clubbed, struck, knocked down, punched…. 0
Treated at the scene, hospitalized…. 0
Escaped/lynched from a patrol car…. 0
Must have been a “merciful” violent mob. Nothin’ to see here, folks, move along . . .
#21: Whatever happened to that video, and where might it be now?
Reminds me of the incident that a 300 student college Psychology class had to observe & report upon. When the reports were submitted to the class instructor there were 300 different versions of what happened.
I saw “a” video, and presume it is “the” video folks are talking about. Can anyone recover that footage and provide a link for all to view. I think that will answer a WHOLE lot of questions regarding IAB’s charge of Cowardice. I don’t think it is the exact same footage as provided on the CH7 link. If it is, what I saw was much more and very detailed what the female deputy did and did not do while the male deputy was taking care of business.
Also, anyone have info on the rumors that Thompson and others were “finessed” yesterday? Just axing.
# 22 Getmeamirror: I didn’t know “no blood no foul” applied to law enforcement. interesting.
# 23 The vid was taken off youtube, I’m scrounging for a copy now.
# 24: I heard the same thing about Thompson, but haven’t confirmed it.
What do you mean saying some were ” finessed” never heard that term used in my career.
Roy: Baca used that term when Baca told editors from various newspapers on how he (Baca) got rid of Tanaka. Baca ´finessed´ Tanaka.
She’s a brave women that’s good she spoke out, we need more like her ,a lot of innocent people are put away because of corruption in the lasd system enough said
This much I will say. LASD did not train deputies who have gone 10-15 or have a suspect detained in their back seat to allow a group of “citizens” to swarm them and lynch their suspect. That particular group of “citizens” had refused multiple orders from deputy personnel to back off. Those “citizens”, who were visibly angry and assuming combative-style stances and aggressive gestures, along with whatever threatening words were being spewed, were not giving the male deputy a “group hug” and thanking him for his service. They put that deputy’s life in immediate danger. His weapon was theirs at any point they chose to take it. The female deputy would have been justified to clear leather and start dropping those suspects (citizens) until the threat was over. That video was ugly and I was angry to see what the female deputy did and didn’t do. Getting on the radio and putting out assistance is just the first of many steps that should have been taken. Lord and the guys that know me know what I what have done next. I don’t call her brave. I call her damn lucky. And that’s what LASD gets for putting people in jobs they aren’t at least competent at and haven’t earned.
Shut up.
Our whole department is 10-30!
We are full of Punk-Ass Deputies working areas that they are scared to death to be in. Knowing damn well they would not be anywhere near those Ghetto streets if they were not wearing a Badge & Gun!
10-30