The Azusa Police Department arrested Joseph Iniguez, the Chief of Staff for Los Angeles County’s District Attorney George Gascón, for alleged public intoxication. The 36-year-old Iniguez’s arrest happened in a traffic signal on December 11, 2021, on East Alosta Avenue, as per an Azusa PD statement.
According to the jail records of Los Angeles County, the Department released Iniguez early the next morning. As per the records, the reason for Iniguez’s release cited a state penal code section that lets an officer let a suspect go out of jail should they be apprehended for just intoxication.
As per an Azusa PD statement, the Department referred the case of Iniguez to DA Gascón’s office to decide whether there is a need to file criminal charges. The position of Iniguez in the Office of the Los Angeles County District Attorney creates a conflict of interest. Therefore, the Department is likely to redirect the case to the Office of the California Attorney General.
Iniguez and his gay fiancé were going back home after attending a wedding ceremony and visited an Azusa drive-thru restaurant when Azusa PD cops approached them. Police Lieutenant at Azusa Police Department Rocky Wenrick stated that a traffic law violation on an LA street initiated the stop.
According to Iniguez, the cops suggested that his fiancé was committing a DUI offense and then told the driver to exit the car. Then, Iniguez filmed the interaction of his LGBTQ fiancé with the cops as he became concerned about that person.
Iniguez stated that he stood near the vehicle and started recording the interaction between his fiancé and the cops. Iniguez did not think that those Azusa PD cops used body-worn or dashboard cameras, so he became concerned about what would happen next.
Iniguez stated that the cops never told him to go back into his car and that they arrested him for public drunkenness. He stated that they put handcuffs on his fiancé and detained him for a while but did not arrest him. Wenrick confirmed that the cops released the fiancé of Iniguez then and there itself.
Iniguez regards his arrest as a punishment for recording the interaction, but he did not offer any information to back the claim. Iniguez did not instantly offer The LA Times a version of the incident he recorded during that traffic stop.
He has submitted a complaint to the Internal Affairs Division against the cop who apprehended him. Azusa PD representative Wenrick refused to comment about Iniguez’s accusations about the Department.
As per Wenrick, police were not aware of any footage of that incident except for what the accused recorded with his phone. The Department is yet to equip its officers with body cameras and has not watched any video recording from Iniguez.
DA Gascón’s Special Advisor Alex Bastian stated that the office knew about the incident and that Gascón has the maximum confidence in Iniguez. Describing the incident as a personal issue, Bastian stated that he could not discuss the specific details about it.
A high school tutor and an erstwhile defense attorney, Iniguez was also a deputy prosecutor in LA who became famous as he made a bid for the district attorney’s position two years ago.
An LGBTQ DA hopeful, Iniguez criticized how Lacey treated defendant parties of color before he withdrew from the 2019 election and joined Gascón’s 2020 campaign.
After Gascón’s win, Iniguez got promoted to act as the temporary chief deputy prosecutor at the office. The decision to promote Iniguez did not go well with a few deputy district attorneys. DA Gascón demanded that his erstwhile chief deputy Sharon Woo replace Iniguez, which then made Iniguez his chief of staff.
