Now that Mitrice Richardson has been found after going missing for 11 months and laid to rest Saturday, the county of Los Angeles has gone to great lengths to prove that its Sheriff’s Department is, in no way, responsible for her death. 

The county’s Office of Independent Review has issued a 60-page confidential report exonerating the Sheriff’s Department of any wrongdoing — and in many instances, praising it for its actions — in the Mitrice Richardson matter. But some department insiders and Mitrice’s family say of the report, in the words of my grandfather: “That dog won’t hunt.”

“My attorney told me the OIR report is all garbage,” said Michael Richardson, Mitrice’s father. “The OIR is the guard dog for the Sheriff’s Department. And what does a guard dog do?” Richardson asked. “It protects its master, so of course, the OIR won’t find anything wrong with its master’s actions.”

Richardson firmly believes that something bad happened to his 24-year-old daughter the night she was released from the sheriff’s custody on Sept. 17, 2009 and “they don’t want us to know about it,” the father said. And a careful reading of the OIR report does lend credence to such a belief.

Take the questions surrounding Mitrice’s release from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station alone, without transportation, shortly after midnight in an isolated area, for example. OIR report sees nothing wrong with that in that it cites state law and department-wide policy of releasing misdemeanor arrestees from detention “as soon as they are eligible and in a safe manner regardless of their race or gender.” 

A deputy in the Lynwood Regional Justice Center (also called the Century Station) is troubled by that statement, because he said his jail has a policy of not releasing women arrestees after 10 p.m. unless they have someone waiting for them. A bail bondsman, who has spent more than 10 years freeing men, women and sometimes juveniles from jails throughout the region, agrees with the deputy. “I’ve been told not only by deputies, but by the man behind the glass that they do not release women in the middle of the night because — and I quote — ‘We don’t want to be liable if anything happens to them.’”

“So why is that not the policy throughout the county?” The bondsman asked? He said the Century Station is in a safer place for release than the Malibu/Lost Hills Station from which Mitrice was set free. He explained that Century is located in an urban area beside the train tracks at Alameda and Imperial Highway in a neighborhood teeming with human activity. He said a busy liquor store is on the corner near the station and people are in and out of it all through the night. 

“But Lost Hills sits off the freeway in a very rugged, isolated area close to Ventura County and nobody, man or woman, can safely be released from there, day or night, without transportation,” the bondsman said. “So why is it unsafe for women in the city, but safe for them in the boondocks?” he asked. “There obviously is no department-wide policy,” he answered.

Richardson finds fault with the OIR report’s almost overhanded insistence that deputies were unaware of any mental health problems Mitrice may have had when she was taken into custody. “How could that be?” Richardson asked.

”The 911 caller to the station requesting help with Mitrice said she was ‘talking crazy.’ The people in the restaurant told them her behavior was bizarre. But the deputies ignored them and handled things their own way,” Richardson said.
“I am a 19-year veteran in emergency rooms and I deal with law enforcement and I know the protocol as to what they must do when a suspect’s mental state is in question, and they didn’t do it,” Richardson said.   

The OIR report contains several entries about only one potential suspect in the disappearance and possible murder of Mitrice. And he is a sheriff’s deputy.

According to the report, a video tape of Mitrice’s exit from the station shows her leaving through the front door and shows a deputy leaving through the back door just seconds after Mitrice left. An allegation was made that that deputy abducted Mitrice and subsequently killed her. The report says the Sheriff’s Department and OIR investigators thoroughly scrutinized the deputy’s departure and concluded that he had nothing to do with whatever happened to Mitrice.

Richardson, who said he did not know of the exiting deputy incident until I told him I’d read it in the report, said he is not surprised. He said his daughter’s booking photo shows an indentation over her right eyebrow, “like she’d been hit,” he said. Richardson also said the arrest report notes that Mitrice had no tattoos and no body piercings. ”But, she had both,” Richardson said. ”She had several tattoos and three obvious body piercings: one in her navel and one in each breast,” the father said.

As proof that Mitrice did leave the Lost Hills Station alive, contrary to the belief of many people, the report briefly mentions that she was seen in the backyard of the Calabasas home of laid-off KTLA newsman Bill Smith about six hours after she was released from the jail. Investigators report they found her footprints in the yard and they indicated she was running. From what? They don’t say. To where? They don’t know.

Richardson has been suspicious about everything the Sheriff’s Department has done with respect to his daughter. “From the beginning of her disappearance, [Sheriff Leroy] Baca told me that maybe I should ‘just accept that she succumbed to the elements of the earth.’ Where does he get off telling me that?” the father asked. “And here recently, Baca told me ‘We will never know’ the cause of Mitrice’s death. Why not? They just found some babies who died 70 years ago and they’re determined to find the cause of their death, yet they ‘will never know’ about Mitrice’s after 11 months?!” the father said. “No, is this not acceptable. Nothing Baca and the OIR have done is acceptable,” he said.

Richardson is amassing financial resources to have DNA tests done on her remains and is working with his lawyer, Benjamin Schonbrun, and activist Jasmyne Cannick to draft state legislation for a Mitrice’s Law to see that nothing like this happens to anyone else in this state. 

“It’s going to be a custodial law that states that anybody who does not have a ride by a licensed and insured driver cannot be released from a jail, hospital or other health facility and the refusal to release will not be deemed as ‘holding against one’s will,’” Richardson explained, as he vowed: “Something is very wrong here and nobody can do anything to keep me from getting to the truth about what happened to my daughter.”