While Sheriff Robert Luna chases photo ops and funding for his re-election campaign, the Los Angeles County justice system is bleeding out behind the scenes — and drug offenders, rapists, and killers are slipping through the cracks faster than the county can bury the truth.
Inside the LASD crime lab, the meltdown is no longer a warning sign – it’s a full-blown catastrophe.
Sources inside the lab are clear: cases are being dumped, not because deputies aren’t doing their jobs, but because the department can’t process basic evidence. And while the executive staff prioritizes PR over public safety, hundreds of real investigations are quietly dying on a lab bench.
“You’ve got a new DA trying to put people away,” one crime analyst told The Current Report, “but the crime lab can’t produce a simple report in time. It’s a joke. And it’s dangerous.”
Back in 2020, the crime lab was operating with 30 analysts. Today, that number has been gutted to just 14. This isn’t an organic staffing fluctuation — this is the fallout from years of political interference, budget slashing by the Board of Supervisors, and Luna’s failure to lead a department in free fall. The once-reliable turnaround time of 1–2 days for drug analysis has ballooned to four to five months. The result? Solid cases vanish into thin air while suspects walk out the door under Penal Code 849(b)(1), meaning “case dropped – no evidence.”
But the nightmare doesn’t stop with narcotics.
In March, NBC4 dropped a bombshell: LA County is re-testing hundreds of DNA samples in major cases — murders, rapes, violent assaults — because they were processed with defective test kits. And the kicker? The manufacturer, Puritan Medical Products, knew the kits were faulty as early as 2021 but said nothing.
That means critical evidence in serious crimes – crimes with victims still waiting for justice — may be compromised. Forensic evidence that should have delivered convictions is now in question. And once again, Luna has said nothing. No emergency briefing. No show of accountability. Just the same radio silence while the credibility of the entire forensic process disintegrates.
Analysts inside the lab say it’s worse than the public knows. There’s no budget. No hiring plan. No new equipment. And absolutely no urgency from the top. “We don’t even track the backlog anymore,” one analyst admitted. “Why would we? The execs don’t want the numbers getting out. They don’t want the public knowing how badly this department is failing.”
This is beyond bureaucratic neglect. It’s intentional. It’s systematic. And it’s being hidden behind a wall of polished PR and political theater.
Robert Luna promised transparency. He delivered obfuscation. He promised reform. He delivered chaos. He promised integrity. He delivered a department where justice dies in silence and criminals go free.
Let’s be brutally honest: Los Angeles doesn’t have a crime problem. It has a corruption problem. And at the center of it all is a sheriff, and the Board of Supervisors, who treats public safety like a side project.
The crime lab isn’t just understaffed. It isn’t just behind. It is broken. Buried. Weaponized by neglect. And until someone rips the lid off this cover-up, victims across LA County will keep watching their cases disappear into a black hole – while the system meant to protect them keeps protecting itself.
Luna didn’t inherit this collapse. He owns it. And until someone steps in, the message from LASD is clear: If you’re a criminal in LA County – relax. The evidence will likely never make it to court.
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