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Smoke and Mirrors: Sheriff Luna, Supervisor Barger Sell Fantasy to Voters at “State of the County” While LASD Bleeds Staff

For months, Sheriff Robert Luna and Supervisor Kathryn Barger have stood in lockstep, peddling the same tired script: that “public safety is their top priority”. With choreographed press conferences and hollow soundbites, they’ve paraded around buzzwords like “deputy wellness,” “community trust,” and “readiness”, all while the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department quietly collapses behind the scenes.

The reality? LASD is in free fall.

The Current Report recently reported the department is suffering a historic 24% vacancy rate, a staggering 4,166 unfilled positions across patrol, investigations, custody, and specialized units.

That’s not a staffing gap. That’s a full-blown crisis.

But don’t expect Luna or Barger to say that out loud.

At the “State of the County” event held last week, Barger smiled for the cameras and declared, “Deputy wellness, public safety, and homeless reform are top priorities,” flanked by Luna as they sold their fantasy to an audience that likely has no idea how bad things really are. Not once did either acknowledge that nearly 1 in 4 LASD positions are currently vacant. Because that would ruin the show.

But the cracks in the stage are showing.

Assistant Sheriff Jason Skeen, who once supported Luna’s candidacy, broke rank at a recent Civilian Oversight Commission meeting with this startling statement:

“We are at a precipice.” he told the Civilian Oversight Commission in May, admitting it is becoming more difficult to accomplish the Sheriff’s department’s mission with the current staffing crisis. “For every three people, they have to do the duties of one additional person,” Skeen said.

That’s not spin. That’s a distress signal, and it exposes Luna and Barger’s PR campaign for what it is: political gaslighting.

Even more astonishing is that Skeen secretly backed Luna for Sheriff in 2022, allegedly undermining then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva, his own boss, at the behest of the Board of Supervisors and Luna’s campaign. Despite Luna’s well-known record of failed leadership at the Long Beach Police Department, Skeen bet on his political pliability to serve his own self-interests, aligning himself with a Board that had systematically torpedoed every effort Villanueva made to stabilize and strengthen the largest sheriff’s department in the nation.

Villanueva did not mince words on X:

“They lied to the public about our staffing levels. They said we were fully staffed, but they weren’t. We had thousands of vacant seats.”

That’s not a disagreement, it’s a damn indictment.

The truth is this: Luna inherited a fully functional department, but instead of continuing to build upon his predecessor’s efforts and leadership, he chose to surrender the department to the whims of the progressive Board of Supervisors, and biased mainstream media outlets pushing their propaganda.

Meanwhile, Barger, who once claimed to champion public safety, is now fully complicit, propping up Luna’s illusion while turning a blind eye to the human toll caused by the mass exodus of department personnel.

And that toll is growing.

Emergency response times are dangerously long. Deputies are burning out under relentless overtime. Communities, especially in underserved areas, are left vulnerable. Patrols are stretched razor thin.

And the Board of Supervisors?

Silent. Detached. Delusional.

You cannot claim LASD is “thriving” when one-quarter of your workforce doesn’t exist. That’s not optimism, it’s dereliction of duty.

LA County voters aren’t stupid. They can see beyond the smoke and mirrors.

This isn’t a story about reform. It’s a slow-motion train wreck in 2026 campaign mode – and the public deserves to know exactly who’s behind the wheel.

The Current Report Editor in Chief Cece Woods founded The Local Malibu, an activism based platform in 2014. The publication was instrumental in the success of pro-preservation ballot measures and seating five top vote-getters in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Malibu City Council elections.

During the summer of 2018, Woods exposed the two-year law enforcement cover-up in the Malibu Creek State Park Shootings, and a few short months later provided the most comprehensive local news coverage during the Woolsey Fire attracting over one million hits across her social media platforms.

Since 2020, Woods was the only journalist reporting on the on-going public corruption involving former L.A. Metro CEO Phil Washington. Woods worked with Political Corruption expert Adam Loew, DC Watchdog organizations and leaders in the Capitol exposing Washington which ultimately led to the withdrawal of his nomination to head the FAA.

Woods also founded Malibu based 90265 Magazine and Cali Mag devoted to the authentic southern California lifestyle.

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