Alcoholics “make things up” regardless of their status.
“Deputies don’t make stuff up, the hope is, and we contend they did not fabricate anything.”
So said Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore in defending Deputies Samuel Orozco and Scott Giles, who claimed a couple, Erick Hosey and his girlfriend Shatwan Smith, resisted arrest and had rock cocaine in their car. Orozco’s past on-duty behaviors were scrutinized during a subsequent trial in which L.A. County was ordered to pay $650,000 in restitution to the couple for “ruining their lives.” Witnesses told of run-ins with Orozco, including one in which he used the N-word against a local resident and another who said she’d been roughed up and subsequently acquitted after being booked for an unnamed offense. Sorry, Mr. Whitmore, but alcoholics not only make things up but—let’s be blunt, shall we?—they lie and they may lie frequently, whether they are Deputies, teachers, lawyers, doctors, truck drivers, CEOs, politicians or, well, anyone. While we can’t be sure that either officer Orozco or officer Giles has the disease of alcoholism, they—and every other officer in the department—should be regularly screened for behavioral indications of having the disease. If they screen positive, they need to be treated accordingly.