Los Angeles’ head Sheriff Lee Baca in a report to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors contends that the Malibu-Lost Hills Sheriff’s station did nothing wrong in releasing Mitrice Richardson in the middle of nowhere, shortly after midnight on September 17 with no money, transportation, or a cell phone.
The report comes after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor’s requested the sheriff’s written policy regarding its procedures for releasing people from custody who may pose a risk to themselves, including procedures for releasing people after normal business hours who are alone or without a visible means of transportation, or who may have disabilities or impairments and may pose a risk to themselves.
Micahel Richardson, Mitrice’s Father Responds
The sheriff’s department is wrong. First they let my daughter go in the middle of the night without transportation, a cell phone, or any money. Then after repeated attempts for weeks to get the videotape showing my daughter entering and or exiting the station, they tell a little community newspaper in Malibu last week that they don’t have any tapes of my daughter–never once notifying the family of this and instead allowing us to read about in the media. And now this–a report completely exhonerating them of doing anything wrong in the handling of my daughter. This is ridiculous and my daughter is still missing and really it’s the sheriff’s who were the last verified people to see her.
If I follow the sheriff’s departments own logic, it’s clear they acted inapproproiately. The initial call regarding my daughter from Geoffrey’s to the sheriff’s was that she was “acting crazy.” Crazy. Crazy as in mental problems, as in you don’t release her on her own in the middle of the night without money, her cell phone, or transportation. You call her parents and or hold her overnight.
If the sheriff’s handling my daughter would have used a little common sense or even put themselves in our shoes as parents and thought twice before just letting Mitrice out into the middle of the night, my daughter would not be missing. But because they didn’t, she is and they refuse to accept responsibility or even act as though they played a role in her disappearance or that they even care. We are tired to being lied to and misled by the sherrif’s department. I believe that someone at the Malibu-Lost Hills sheriff’s department had something to do with my daughter’s disappearance and this report only confirms it for me.