Long Beach police officers acquitted of perjury, filing false reports

A jury acquitted two Long Beach police officers Wednesday on charges of perjury and filing false reports stemming from a 2018 arrest.

Los Angeles County prosecutors accused Officers Dedier Reyes and David Salcedo of lying about the circumstances in which they recovered a handgun, causing the wrong person to be arrested and briefly jailed, authorities had said. Both men were charged with falsifying a public record, while Reyes faced an additional count of perjury and Salcedo was charged with a separate count of filing a false report.

After a six-day trial and more than five hours of deliberation, a downtown L.A. jury acquitted both officers of all charges.

“Today’s verdict in the acquittal of two Long Beach police officers is a reminder of the challenges we face in the pursuit of justice. While we respect the judicial process and the decision rendered, we cannot deny our disappointment in the outcome,” Dist. Atty. George Gascón said in a statement.

The officers’ arrests initially led both Long Beach city and L.A. County prosecutors to open reviews into cases where they either served as witnesses or were the arresting officer. In 2021, Long Beach City Prosecutor Douglas Haubert told the Long Beach Post he was reviewing more than 800 closed and pending cases involving Reyes and Salcedo.

California

Wrongly accused of rape in L.A. County as a teen, man freed from prison after 28 years

Gerardo Cabanillas was promised probation if he confessed to a sexual assault he didn’t commit when he was 18 years old. After 28 years in prison, Cabanillas has been freed after DNA evidence proved his innocence, officials announced Monday.

Sept. 26, 2023

Haubert did not respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday. Gascón said the acquittal “does not absolve us of the responsibility to consider the underlying conduct of the officers” when reviewing other cases. It was not immediately clear how many past or pending cases involving Reyes and Salcedo the office was reviewing.

Both officers were fired by the Long Beach Police Department in April 2022, according to Richard Mejia, a public information officer for the agency. He did not offer a specific reason for their termination.

The charges already led to at least one person’s release. Last year, a judge granted the district attorney’s office’s request to re-sentence 34-year-old Miguel Vargas. Vargas had previously been convicted of assault on Reyes during an incident where the officer shot Vargas in the back.

In that case, Vargas was convicted of assault and gun possession, despite the fact that the gun was never fired and Reyes never accused Vargas of pointing a weapon at him.

Vargas’ attorney, Matthew Kaestner, previously told The Times his client was leaving a party that police had responded to when he was chased by Reyes and Salcedo.

Vargas fled because he had a gun — which he was barred from possessing due to a prior felony conviction — but threw it away during the foot chase, Kaestner said. Reyes had alleged Vargas was turning toward him and reaching for a firearm, but Kaestner said the handgun was found “25 feet away” from where Vargas fell after being shot.

While he was initially sentenced to nearly four decades in prison because of sentencing enhancements, prosecutors filed a petition to re-sentence him to time served in 2022 following Reyes’ arrest. Citing issues with Reyes’ credibility, the district attorney’s office asked a judge to vacate the assault conviction against Vargas and grant him release after 12 years in prison on the gun possession charge.