A judge Tuesday lifted a 2020 hold on a sheriff’s lieutenant’s lawsuit against Los Angeles County, in which he alleges his supervisors retaliated against him for trying to inform the public about shootings in and around Malibu Creek State Park before a man was killed there while camping with his daughters in 2018.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elaine Lu took the action in plaintiff Lt. James Royal’s case in the wake of Friday’s second-degree murder conviction of Anthony Rauda stemming from the shooting of 35-year-old Tristan Beaudette, who was killed at the park on June 22, 2018, while sleeping in a tent with his daughters, ages 2 and 4.
Rauda, a vagrant who lived in the surrounding area, was arrested in October 2018.
The judge put the Royal suit on hold in October 2020 after county attorneys argued that investigation and discovery relevant to the issues in the lieutenant’s suit directly overlapped those in the Rauda criminal case. At that time, the relevant discovery was protected from disclosure because of a court order that only allowed access of the information to Rauda’s attorney, county attorneys argued.
The judge scheduled a case management conference in Royal’s suit for June 8.
The first shooting Royal warned about occurred Nov. 3, 2016, in Tapia Park; the second on Nov. 9, 2016, in Malibu Creek State Park; and the third on Jan. 7, 2017, also in Malibu Creek State Park.
Royal, then a 24-year sheriff’s department veteran, told his supervisors that the agency needed to warn the public about the initial shootings, but no advisory was given and Royal’s bosses told him it was a state park problem and not theirs, according to the suit.
Four additional shootings occurred in the area, including one just four days before the Beaudette killing, when a Tesla was struck by a bullet at Malibu Creek State Park, the suit states. Royal recommended to a gathering at the sheriff’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles that a public safety statement be issued, but once again his suggestion was denied, the suit states.
After Beaudette was killed, Royal was instructed by his supervisors to state at a town hall meeting that the official position of the sheriff’s department was that the prior shootings were unrelated to his death, the suit states.
In retaliation for speaking out, Royal was transferred from the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station to the Santa Clarita station, a less prestigious assignment, and was stripped of his detective status, the suit states. He also was subjected to an Internal Affairs investigation under false circumstances that has damaged his reputation, the suit alleges.