Jonathan Christopher Laroche, a detective with the Department of the Navy’s Criminal Investigations Division, pleaded guilty in federal court, admitting that he used unreasonable force when he used a carotid restraint on a handcuffed man to the point of unconsciousness.
Laroche admitted to later grabbing the man by the throat and pushing his head against a wall while the man was handcuffed to a bench.
Laroche also pleaded guilty to willfully concealing his prior record of excessive force at the El Cajon Police Department to be hired as a detective by the Navy.
In the hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michelle M. Pettit, Laroche admitted that on November 14, 2023, while he was on duty, he encountered a man identified in court documents as G.D., who had been detained and transported to the security building aboard Naval Base San Diego by other Navy law enforcement personnel.
Although Laroche did not know why G.D. had been detained, he followed the other Navy law enforcement officers into a separate room. At the time, G.D.’s hands were handcuffed behind him, and he posed no threat to Laroche or anyone else in the room. Nevertheless, Laroche immediately took G.D. to the ground and used a carotid restraint that lasted approximately 17 seconds and caused G.D. to lose consciousness.
After G.D. regained consciousness, he was taken back into the main room of the security building, where Laroche handcuffed him to a bench. In a subsequent interaction, while G.D. remained handcuffed to the bench and was not a threat to anyone, Laroche grabbed G.D. by the throat and pushed his head against the wall. Laroche had to be pulled away from G.D. by a supervisor.
Laroche admitted that during both of these incidents, he acted willfully and intentionally, depriving G.D. of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, which includes the right to be free from the unreasonable use of force under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
According to his plea agreement, Laroche also admitted that he lied in his August 15, 2022, application to the Criminal Investigations Division about the circumstances under which he left his prior employment with the El Cajon Police Department.
Specifically, Laroche represented to the Department of the Navy that he had left the El Cajon Police Department because he had been “hired by U.S. Department of Defence police.”
On the application, he falsely indicated that he had not been reprimanded or disciplined while employed by the El Cajon Police Department and had not “quit after being told [he] would be fired,” among other false statements.
In reality, Laroche resigned from the El Cajon Police Department in June 2018 after being informed he was going to be fired as a result of two separate incidents in 2017 where he was found to have used excessive force against civilians. He also received a letter of reprimand in September 2015 for an earlier incident in which he used excessive force.
Laroche admitted that he knowingly and willfully provided this false information in his application to the Criminal Investigations Division.
“The investigation into Mr Laroche revealed that he betrayed his oath to protect and serve the Navy by using unreasonable force while on duty and by deliberately hiding his history of such offences in order to be hired by the Navy,” said special agent in charge Nicholas Carter of the NCIS Southwest Field Office. “NCIS remains committed to rooting out criminality that threatens the safety of Navy service members, civilians, and their families.”
As part of his plea agreement with the United States, Laroche must resign from his position with the Criminal Investigations Division and is prohibited from seeking or applying for any position of employment with a law enforcement agency in the future.
Laroche is scheduled to be sentenced on October 2, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. before U.S. District Court Judge John A. Houston.
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