Two deputies involved in the police shooting of 18-year-old Andres Guardado in 2020 have been indicted on charges in a separate case in which they allegedly falsely imprisoned a man and then filed false reports to cover up their actions, authorities said.
Miguel Angel Vega, 32, and Christopher Blair Hernandez, 37, worked as deputies assigned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Compton Station on April 13, 2020, when they unlawfully detained the victim, identified only as 23-year-old J.A., and kept him in the back of their patrol SUV during a pursuit in which they crashed, causing injuries to the victim, the indictment states.
Vega and Hernandez face charges of conspiracy, deprivation of rights under color of law, witness tampering and falsification of records, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday. Vega faces an additional count of falsification of records.
The two men surrendered to federal authorities Thursday, less than a month after they were named in the March 21 indictment.
“The indictment alleges that these two deputies violated a young person’s constitutional rights by willingly and illegally detaining him without just cause,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “Officers who abuse their power must be held accountable.”
The detention and crash occurred about two months before the shooting of Guardado in the 400 block of Redondo Beach Boulevard in unincorporated Los Angeles County just east of Gardena.
Vega and Hernandez pulled up to Wilson Park in Compton and detained J.A. after he had yelled at them to stop bothering two young Black males outside the skatepark, according to the indictment. J.A. was identified in the indictment as an “avid skateboarder, and a non-gang member.”
At least one of the deputies pulled him through an opening in a fence and put him in the back of the SUV without telling him why he was being detained or informing him of his rights, the indictment said. They didn’t…
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