'Staffing crisis' leading to longer response times in LA County, deputies say

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- They are the crime fighters of Los Angeles County, and they say a severe shortage of deputies has them overworked like never before.

Right now, according to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, there are 1,463 deputy positions that are not filled. When you take that and combine it with all the deputies who are out for reasons like medical leave, family leave or military duty, the sheriff's department says 23 percent of deputy positions are not available.

"Deputies are getting severely burned out," said Deputy Christopher Chung.

Chung leads a team of patrol deputies that should be 23 strong. But right now, he says he has just 12 deputies on that team.

"That means we have to fulfill our obligations with a lot of overtime," said Chung. "Deputies are coming to work in not ideal conditions."

Deputy Jorge Calvillo says he now sometimes works back-to-back doubles to make sure 911 calls are answered. Not only is that costing you the taxpayer more in time-and-a-half pay, but Calvillo says it takes a toll on him too.

"It drains you," said Calvillo.

"Who makes their best decisions when they are exhausted, and they just worked 16 hours back-to-back days?" said Richard Pippin, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. "Our response times are up across the county. The work force is tired."

A report the sheriff's department sent to the Board of Supervisors in September last year shows response times for high priority emergency calls across the county from 2018 through 2023 ticked up by an average of .64 minutes - which translates to 38 seconds.

The report also says, "increasing vacancies since 2020...could be contributing to the increased response times."

Sheriff Robert Luna told Eyewitness News that turning around the staffing shortage is his number one priority.

"It's a staffing crisis. There's no way around that terminology," said Luna.

It's a crisis he inherited - but a crisis Luna told us he wants to fix. Luna has brought in a marketing firm to help recruit people into the crime fighting profession.

Police work has become politicized, and the sheriff hopes this helps reverse that.

"We're consistently trying to think out of the box," said Luna. "We will continue to do that to make sure we're hiring the best people to serve our community."

And deputies are rooting for their sheriff too.

Los Angeles will be hosting the Olympic games in just four years.

"We have huge, worldwide events that are looming in the near future," said Chung. "And we simply do not have the staffing for it."