La Puente : Support for Sheriff’s Captain

The City Council on Tuesday expressed its support of Capt. Michael Nagaoka of the Industry Sheriff’s Station, thus rebuffing a citizens group demanding his replacement.

The council voted 4 to 0 to draft a letter to Sheriff Sherman Block offering “100% support” of Nagaoka. Councilman Charles H. Storing was absent.

Nagaoka recently came under fire from a newly formed group called “La Puente Parent Power.” Manuel Maldonado, the organizer of the group, said Nagaoka was responsible for unacceptably slow response times to emergency calls and a lack of Spanish-speaking officers.

In a letter to the City Council, Nagaoka responded that the station’s response times are “within acceptable ranges” and added that his recruitment efforts have boosted the number of Latino officers at the station from 26 to 35.