The Los Angeles Police Department announced another employee death from COVID-19 on Saturday, as the agency deals with a serious uptick in cases that has mirrored a county-wide winter surge.
Dexter De Los Santos, who worked as a security guard at the department’s Security Services Division for eight years, died on Friday, officials announced. He was the third LAPD employee to die from COVID-19 in five days.
Officer Philip Sudario died Monday and Sgt. Patricia Guillen died on Thursday. Both served in LAPD’s South Bureau.
Just as L.A. County residents dealt with a terrible surge in cases and deaths since Thanksgiving, LAPD saw the virus rip through its ranks, as well. Of the department’s overall eight deaths from COVID-19, six have died in just the last two months.
After a steady stream of cases that began in March 2020, the number of positive coronavirus cases among LAPD employees more than doubled beginning in December: Since Dec. 8, at least 1,200 employees tested positive for the virus.
The coronavirus surge through LAPD “has only accelerated and become more widespread and more lethal,” since December, said LAPD Chief Michel Moore on Tuesday when he discussed the recent infection numbers with police commissioners, describing the sudden increase as “an explosion.”
Moore said the surge within LAPD mirrored the broader increase in coronavirus cases around the county, which reached nearly 1,117,000 on Sunday, with 16,770 deaths.
LAPD officials have not responded to a request for De Los Santos’ age and survivors. They also did not say what his last posting was with the Security Services Division, which employs both sworn and civilian workers who guard L.A. city facilities.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones,” LAPD officials said in a statement. “Dexter, we thank you for your service.”
On Tuesday, Moore said Officer Sudario left behind a wife and three children. He was an LAPD officer for 25 years.
The chief told police commissioners that as of Tuesday LAPD had eight employees recovering in hospitals from COVID-19, and he said three were in critical condition. It wasn’t known Sunday if De Los Santos or Guillen had been among those hospitalized employees.
LAPD is supposed to begin broadly vaccinating officers this week. Police officers fall in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s first tier of essential workers, just after firefighters. But delays in LAFD’s vaccines roll out and a crimped supply line is throwing that timeline into doubt: Moore said Tuesday that L.A. County was dealing with a severe shortage of vaccines.
So far, through extra doses provided by LAFD and hospitals that otherwise would have gone to waste, around 2,000 LAPD officers have been vaccinated.
As cases and deaths mount, however, local officials are pushing vaccine providers to move faster.
“This pandemic has hit our officers hard, yet they continue to show up and do their jobs,” said Craig Lally, the president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, in a statement. The union represents most rank-and-file LAPD officers.
“We strongly urge the County Department of Public Health to move as quickly as possible so that our officers can stay healthy and keep protecting our residents.”
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3rd LAPD employee in 5 days dies from COVID-19 - LA Daily News
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