The detective accused of giving a Nazi-like salute is resigning from the South Pasadena Police Department

A seasoned detective who once got into hot water posing as a deputy and sneaking into Men's Prison resigned from the South Pasadena Police Department amid recent allegations that he repeatedly gave a Nazi-like gesture last year during a training lecture held by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, according to news reports and internal records.

City police officials announced Mark Lillienfeld's decision to step down Wednesday, hours after The Times first reported on the Sheriff's 2023 investigation that ultimately tied him to a “Do Not Rehire” designation.

As written in a 40-page internal affairs report released by the Sheriff's Department earlier this month, the investigation found that Lillienfeld violated the gender equality policy when she presented a lecture at a homicide detective training course in May 2023. The report said one of the officers present – a black woman from the Los Angeles Police Department – accused Lillienfeld of making inappropriate comments, once calling police officers Asian. as “the Chinese” and later said that he and another black police officer in the class were the most likely suspects if anything who jumped him in the parking lot after that.

At the time of the study, Lillienfeld had already retired from the Sheriff's Department and was working as an outside salesman. State records show he began working as a South Pasadena detective earlier this year.

“The City of South Pasadena and the Police Department take this report seriously, and the department does not condone this type of behavior by any officer in its department,” a South Pasadena news release said last week. “The officer in question submitted his resignation, which was accepted by Chief of Police Brian Solinsky.”

Last week, the Sheriff's Department said it would not hire Lillienfeld as an instructor for future classes. Meanwhile, the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training – which oversees the quality of law enforcement training across the country – said in a statement that it recently received these allegations and currently approves instructors based on information submitted by local agencies, but does not do so. have a way to remove them.

“The Commission met last week and discussed this regulatory issue and plans to make changes so that in the future we have the ability to remove teachers like these,” said the statement.

Although Lillienfeld did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday, her lawyer, Tom Yu, said last week that the allegations were “absolutely baseless.” He said that because Lillienfeld had already retired, he “had no standing to appeal the case or to upset the one-sided investigation.”

In 2008, internal affairs records show Lillienfeld was reprimanded for calling a woman “broad” and repeatedly using profanity during a separate training session. After retiring in 2016, he began working as an investigator for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, where he eventually served. caught on camera pretending to be a supporter to sneak fast food to an inmate at the Men's Central Jail.

After that, he stayed for a long time banned from county jails. In 2019, he returned to the Sheriff's Department to join then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva's controversial anti-corruption unit, a shadow unit accused of targeting the sheriff's critics — including patrol officers, county leaders and a former Times reporter. found a leaked list of problem solvers.

Lillienfeld left the department again in January 2023 after Villanueva lost again since he said the incident at the Main Prison for Men it was part of a strategy to overturn a wrongful conviction by gaining the trust of the real killer.

The complaint that led to the “Do Not Rehire” designation stems from a two-week homicide detective course that attracted about 30 police officers and deputies from departments across Southern California. The Sheriff's Department redacted all of their names in its 40-page report, along with the name of the Los Angeles police officer whose concerns sparked the investigation.

“Throughout the lesson, Subject Lillienfeld was rude, condescending, unprofessional and made inappropriate comments to several students in the class,” investigators wrote in a summary of their interview with the Los Angeles official.

They said the officer told them she believed Lillienfeld targeted Asian and Black students with unusual jokes, once calling only two Asian students “Chinese” and repeatedly making fun of a woman's name. The officer also told investigators Lillienfeld said a lot of “nonsense” about the Los Angeles Police Department and how their investigation was “wasted.”

During the speech, the report says, “Lillienfeld also clicked his heels together and extended his arm like Hitler,” while saying something that sounded like “climb” or “rise.”

A Los Angeles police officer said he thought it was possible Lillienfeld was doing it as a joke, but it seemed inappropriate because “it seems like it was done by groups who believe that white people are beyond their control,” according to the report.

At the end of the class, she alleged, Lillienfeld apologized to her and the other black woman — an officer with the Menifee Police Department — and thanked them for letting her make fun of them. Then he told investigators, Lillienfeld allegedly told the class participants that if they saw him outside in the parking lot two cars behind his head, they should look for two black women as suspects.

A Menifee police officer told investigators that he remembers Lillienfeld being funny, but he didn't feel like he was picked on for his jokes. Although she told investigators she remembers hearing Lillienfeld's comments about black women “jumping” her, she said she was not offended. He also said that he did not remember seeing him give the Nazi salute.

When internal affairs investigators interviewed other officers and deputies in the classroom, most said they did not recall seeing anything inappropriate. Others said that Lillienfeld was funny or too talkative. Another — a La Verne police officer whose name was redacted — said Lillienfeld repeatedly did a “weird thing” in class where he clicked his heels together and raised his arm in what the officer described as a “Nazi salute.” At one point, Lillienfeld said “Sieg Heil” while doing the act, according to the police officer who told investigators.

The officer said he thought Lillienfeld gave a Nazi-like salute while trying to make a point about another investigation he was teaching, but he did not recall the specifics.

After the class ended, a Los Angeles police officer raised concerns during an inspection of the class, prompting an internal investigation.

When investigators tried to interview Lillienfeld in April, the filing says, he asked several questions about the case before refusing to be interviewed. This year, after the completion of an internal affairs investigation, the department confirmed it had put a “Do Not Rehire” mark on Lillienfeld's file.

Hours after The Times story was published Wednesday, Hans Johnson — a member of the Sheriff's Civilian Oversight Commission — sent an email to South Pasadena officials expressing his concerns.

“Why is a person with such red flags of misconduct now working for South Pas. The police department?” Johnson wrote, according to a copy of his email shared with The Times. “Is the South Pasadena PD so strapped for staff that it fails to properly review the background of the detectives it hires, or worse, is it finding those red flags and ignoring them?”

It's unclear how many others have reached out with similar concerns, but in a news release last week the South Pasadena Police Department said it had received “numerous calls and messages” about the issue.

“I want to make it clear that our police department does not tolerate racism or unacceptable speech by any member of our organization,” Solinsky wrote in the release. “Such actions are inconsistent with our values ​​and the expectations of our City Council and our citizens from members of our police force.”