In a scathing July 29th press release, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Professional Association (LASPA) announced that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had officially moved to dismiss all charges against Deputy Trevor Kirk. The union didn’t mince words. It made it unequivocally evident that Kirk wasn’t just wrongfully prosecuted, he was politically scapegoated.
The statement accused federal authorities of manufacturing a case driven by optics, not facts, and condemned Sheriff Robert Luna for handing over one of his own deputies to appease activist pressure. LASPA’s message was loud and unapologetic: Kirk wasn’t the problem, he was collateral damage in a department that has lost its moral compass and a justice system hijacked by politics.
The February 6th verdict sent shockwaves through law enforcement agencies nationwide as Deputy Trevor Kirk was convicted by a federal jury of deprivation of rights under color of law for using pepper spray during a robbery in progress call. The unprecedented verdict could have sent Kirk to federal prison for 10 years.
“Declaring pepper spray a dangerous weapon is unprecedented… The chilling effect on deputies unwilling to engage resisting suspects will breed hesitation and increase the potential for injury on all sides,” Villanueva told The Current Report.
This all stemmed from the June 24th, 2023 incident LASD deputies responded to at the WinCo market in Lancaster. The suspect, became combative and resisted arrest. Kirk used OC spray and physical control tactics to take her into custody, exactly as he was trained to do. The force used was lawful, consistent with department policy, and entirely justified by the circumstances.
Instead of backing his deputy or defending the department’s own use-of-force standards, Luna made a calculated move. He walked the case straight into the hands of the Feds, fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office under President Biden, on a bogus civil rights case that never should have seen the inside of a courtroom.
And why? To placate a small but loud group of Black activists pushing a narrative deliberately distorted by the press, a narrative that demanded prosecution, regardless of the facts.
Under Sheriff Robert Luna’s leadership, political perception takes priority over truth.
And mainstream media was complicit in the effort to undermine law enforcement’s ability to subdue potentially dangerous suspects, deliberately misrepresenting the facts to serve a progressive political agenda.
The so-called “Black woman slammed to the ground by a deputy” splattered across headlines, was actually a robbery suspect who had assaulted a store security officer. She resisted arrest, turned on her cellphone camera mid-struggle, and suddenly became the “victim.” Kirk, the deputy trying to arrest her, became the villain, all thanks to a media echo chamber more interested in pushing left-wing propaganda than facts.
After helping build the case and throwing his deputy to the wolves, Luna then tried to rewrite his role in the takedown. He submitted a letter to the judge begging for leniency, a weak, last-ditch attempt to salvage his image. The same sheriff who helped facilitate the prosecution was now pretending to defend Kirk. The hypocrisy couldn’t be more blatant.
And it didn’t end there. In a private meeting with Lancaster deputies shortly after the conviction, Luna took his spin campaign even further. Leaked audio obtained by The Current Report revealed Luna blatantly lying to his own deputies, claiming the case had reached federal prosecutors because a civil rights attorney brought it to their attention. It was a desperate attempt to distance himself from the fallout and manipulate the narrative within the department. That attempt failed miserably when the two-hour audio was leaked to The Current Report and published.
But the receipts continued to tell the real story. Internal documents confirmed the case was handed over to the Feds almost immediately, with Luna’s full cooperation and direct involvement. His claim wasn’t a mistake. It was a deliberate lie, delivered to the very deputies he was sworn to lead.
In December 2024, federal prosecutors offered Kirk a misdemeanor plea deal with no jail time. Kirk stood on principle and refused. A jury, likely influenced by media propaganda and a courtroom scrubbed of key facts, returned a guilty verdict in under an hour.
In June 2025, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, assigned to the US Attorney’s office for the Central District Court under the Trump administration, reviewed the case and saw it for what it was: a politically motivated dog and pony show. Essayli presented the misdemeanor deal Kirk had previously rejected. A federal judge approved it, confirming what was obvious from the start, this never should have been a felony case. In fact, it shouldn’t have been a case at all. It should have gone through internal department due process and ended there.
Kirk remains employed by LASD but is currently relieved of duty while Internal Affairs goes through the motions, but the message to deputies serving under Sheriff Robert Luna is clear: do your job, follow policy, respond to violent crime, and you can still end up in federal court if the arrest becomes politically inconvenient. Luna’s administration won’t protect you. It will feed you to the fire.
This case was never about justice. It was about optics. Trevor Kirk wasn’t targeted for misconduct. He was targeted because Sheriff Robert Luna needed a win in the court of progressive public opinion, and in the end, Kirk was abandoned by his own department and steamrolled by a Biden-era justice system that no longer respected the rule of law.
What happened to Trevor Kirk is a stern warning. Deputies are on notice, if you enforce the law under Luna’s LASD, you’re on your own – and Kirk won’t be the last one sacrificed for someone else’s political survival disguised as “leadership”.
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