Law enforcement veteran Matt Rodriguez is proving that he’s taking no prisoners in his pursuit to restore law and order in California. He has declared that he’ll take a “very conservative position on how we can solve all of society’s ills that we’re seeing in L.A. County.”
The retired sheriff’s Capt. also shared that he hopes to change everything that’s at stake in the primary election. He feels the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office has gone off course under the leadership of the current sheriff, Alex Villanueva.
“This is the biggest election in the history of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,” Rodriguez said. “The electorate in Los Angeles County got it wrong four years ago.”
Rodriguez is the only remaining registered Republican among the race’s eight nominees who are hoping to unseat Villanueva in the June 7 primary. Only 17 percent of registered voters in L.A. County are Republican. However, he hopes that when residents vote in the primary, they’ll be able to recognize the problems that the current sheriff has been unable to resolve during his current term, and vote for a change in policy.
One of the biggest problems under Villanueva’s leadership is his failure to end the department’s decades-old deputy gang problem. There are deputies still on the force who have matching and menacing tattoos, which represent them taking law and order into their own hands.
Villanueva has stated that he supports a new California law that criminalizes law enforcement gangs. However, Rodriguez feels the current sheriff hasn’t done enough to truly stop their illegal actions.
The Republican nominee declined getting the gangs’ signature tattoo of a skull in front of a gravestone and an iron cross when he was a deputy working at the Carson sheriff’s station. He chose not to get the tattoo because it features “flared tips that reminded me of an iron cross, which was used in Nazi Germany for atrocious purposes.”
With the decades-old deputy gang problem still plaguing the department, Rodriguez reminds L.A. residents that “Law and order is on the ballot” when they vote in the L.A. County Sheriff’s primary election on June 7.
