LA Sheriff Alex Villanueva is at war with nearly everyone. Will it cost him his job?
LOS ANGELES — After four years as Los Angeles County sheriff, Alex Villanueva’s view of things has crystallized into a simple idea: He knows best how to save the county — and you’re either on board with him or part of the problem.
It is an approach that, perhaps not surprisingly, has left Villanueva fighting battles on multiple fronts and, with a couple of weeks before Election Day, fighting for his political survival.
He’s locked in a very public war with the county’s Board of Supervisors, which controls his $3.8 billion budget, as well as its “attack dogs” — Villanueva’s name for the inspector general and Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission — over their attempts to check his authority.
And he eagerly joined an effort to kick the county’s district attorney from office, saying the prosecutor is soft on crime. After relying on progressive voters to carry him to his unlikely victory in 2018, he now mocks the “Democratic party apparatus” as the “woke left” he believes to be at the heart of the county’s problems.
To Villanueva, many journalists — primarily those at the Los Angeles Times — are carrying water for his critics and are not to be trusted.
His me-versus-the-world lens has taken an unmistakable toll.
He’s behind in the polls, and his disapproval numbers are high. And, tellingly, in the wake of his tumultuous first term is a trail of fractured relationships. Many onetime allies, aides and supporters have fallen out with him; some have accused him of abusing his power in one way or another. A few have filed lawsuits against their former boss.
To the 59-year-old sheriff, he’s the one who has been betrayed and maligned.
“If you look at the language and the vitriol coming from the political establishment, you’d think I’m slaying children and drinking their blood,”
