Two Long Beach community groups on Monday, Dec. 14 filed a complaint with a police oversight board, alleging that the city’s police department command staff allowed a dangerous COVID-19 superspreader event to take place last month.
The complaint filed with the Citizen Police Complaint Commission alleges that on Nov. 5, Police Chief Robert Luna, along with members of his senior staff, initiated a gathering of about 300 officers inside the Long Beach Convention Center that constituted a superspreader event because the attendees were not ordered to wear masks or safely distance themselves.
A request for comment sent to the Long Beach Police Department’s media office was not immediately answered.
People of Long Beach and the Long Beach Reform Coalition allege that the gathering took place “without requiring compliance with Health Department mandates associated with social distancing and masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, thereby knowingly and willfully ordering a superspreader event to take place.”
The community groups contend that not only was the assembly a violation of Health Department mandates, “but also a direct contradiction and demonstration of impunity that countered Mayor Robert Garcia’s pleas on local and national television, email, press releases and Twitter alerts for all persons, including city employees to practice social distancing and wear masks.”
The organizations are asking that the Citizen Police Complaint Commission conduct a probe by issuing subpoenas for personnel lists and documents, administering sworn oaths for testimony from the rank and file, and to hold public hearings “so as to prevent the LBPD or the city administration from covering up yet another wholesale violation of the public trust,” according to the emailed letter signed by Carlos Ovalle, executive director of the community group People of Long Beach.
