LAPD gets watchdog who fought for immigrants as Trump vows to ‘unleash’ local cops
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As a young immigration lawyer in California’s Central Valley, Matthew Barragan cut his teeth defending the rights of indigent workers facing deportation.
Now a decade and a half later, he’s responsible for civilian oversight of the Los Angeles Police Department at a time when concerns are running high about stepped-up federal immigration enforcement.
Barragan, 51, was appointed last month as the LAPD’s inspector general. His office, which is independent of the 8,700-officer department, monitors misconduct complaints and conducts internal reviews of police shootings, along with audits and studies at the Police Commission’s request.
Activists have warned that sensitive data gathered by the LAPD’s license plate readers and other technologies could be accessed by the Trump administration, citing Chief Jim McDonnell’s past willingness to engage with immigration agents as further cause for concern.
Privacy advocates pointed to LAPD policies that allow information-sharing with federal immigration authorities as cause for concern in the Trump era.
On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order that the White House said will “unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals” and direct federal agencies to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with immigration agents.
McDonnell, who served as L.A. County sheriff during Trump’s first term, has said he handed over only the most dangerous jailed criminals to federal authorities for deportation, in keeping with the laws. And he has pledged to honor long-standing LAPD rules that shield sensitive information about witnesses and crime victims, along with a policy that prohibits arrests solely for immigration reasons.
The department’s interfacing with federal authorities will be among the many issues that the Police Commission is counting on Barragan to help monitor. A relative unknown in LAPD circles before his hiring, Barragan was picked by the five-member civilian panel unanimously to replace Florence Yu, an office veteran who served as interim inspector general after the departure of Mark Smith last spring.
Barragan said his background as both a civil rights attorney and federal prosecutor — defending the rights of people who were trampled by the criminal justice system, as well as law enforcement officers who were discriminated against by their own departments — gives him a unique perspective on policing issues.
A complaint reviewed by The Times accuses officers of voicing open discrimination against potential recruits and colleagues based on race, sex and sexual orientation.
He told The Times he intends to spend his first few weeks on the job getting up to speed on the expectations of the community and the department, while looking for ways to bring more transparency to the office.
“It’s important that our communities feel that those complaints and audits or systemic issues are going to be addressed and have trust that it will be done so through the perspectives of the diverse community that lives in this region,” he said.
Barragan said he was shaped by his upbringing in the Kern County town of Delano, where his family was active in the United Farm Workers movement that staged marches, boycotts and strikes in defiance of powerful Central Valley growers in the 1960s and ‘70s.
At the same time, he recalled, the socially conservative rural community could also be an isolating place for a young Latino who came out as gay early in life; he faced ridicule for “having a different style of talking or sexual orientation.” He eventually left for college, earning a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from UCLA.
He got his professional start at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a Latino civil rights organization, starting as an intern and eventually getting hired as a staff attorney.
“I was representing individuals that I completely identified with in a lot of ways,” Barragan said. “They were from my background, like I mentioned — sexual orientation, trans individuals — and I felt very comfortable working with that community.”
One of his early cases was defending a Latina professor who challenged tenure discrimination at her school. He also filed a lawsuit against the Westminster Police Department on behalf of three Latino cops who said they had been treated unfairly on the basis of their ethnicity.
Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez is calling on the city to create clearer protocols regarding its immigrant sanctuary laws after Los Angeles police officers were spotted during a local enforcement operation.
“I think we were able to signal to Westminster that it needed to make some changes in the department,” Barragan said.
He was part of a team that successfully sued the Baldwin Park Police Department for violating the Trust Act, a 2013 state law that prohibits police and sheriff’s officials from detaining people for possible deportation unless they had been charged with or convicted of a serious offense.
Barragan said he takes pride in overcoming early barriers to enter “places that maybe weren’t thought to be meant for me” in the legal profession. He worked as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of California, joining in 2017.
“To be able to come into a courtroom and say ‘Matthew Barragan for the United States of America’ was quite a big moment for me and the gravity of that representation and my family, my father having immigrated from Mexico and my family having worked in the fields.”
Among other duties, he handled civil rights cases, including going after the San Luis Obispo County jail system for issues related to use of force and suicide prevention.
Barragan impressed his boss at the time, former U.S. Atty. E. Martin Estrada, who praised his handling of cases in which “you need to do a lot of investigative work and dig into issues and be persistent.”
“He’s a fantastic lawyer, but at the same time a true leader and someone who cares deeply about the community,” Estrada said.
Barragan also took an active role in the office’s community outreach efforts, including “United Against Hate,” which educated people on how to report hate crimes, Estrada said.
In LAPD circles, the inspector general position is seen as a tough job that requires political and institutional savvy to achieve results in a department that has long resisted outside oversight. The office is often referred to as the Police Commission’s eyes and ears.
Some past inspectors general have faced accusations of being too combative — or too cozy — with department leadership. The office has carried out wide-ranging audits of the LAPD’s programs and practices, scrutinizing the much-maligned disciplinary system and an in-field training program for new officers — though it has produced far fewer reports in recent years.
Not even an hour into his first Police Commission meeting late last month, a longtime department observer rose during the public comment period and bluntly demanded that Barragan audit the LAPD’s “If you see something, say something” program, which encourages residents to report suspected terrorist activity.
Police officials say the campaign has helped keep the city safe, but it has drawn concern from civil libertarians and Muslim groups. The concerned citizen wanted the department’s new watchdog to know the department had stopped releasing statistics about the program.
“Barragan, you’re going to have to work on that and get it done,” the speaker said.
Barragan’s supporters say he has always fought for the interests of marginalized communities.
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said his former employee is well suited to handle whatever battles lie ahead.
“It’s so important that someone who’s in a position like his is aware of [immigrant rights] and why they must be defended and protected in the national context of today,” Saenz said.
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