Commentary: From Wild West days to 2025, he safeguards L.A County Sheriff’s Department history

When an explosion killed three L.A. County sheriff’s deputies last month, Mike Fratantoni thought about 1857.

A horse thief named Juan Flores broke out of San Quentin State Prison, joined a posse that called itself Las Manillas — the handcuffs — and headed south toward Southern California. They robbed stores along the way and murdered a German shopkeeper in San Juan Capistrano. Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton was warned about them but ignored the danger. He and his men were ambushed. Four were killed — Barton, Deputy Charles Daly and constables Charles Baker and William Little. The spot, near the interchange where State Route 133 and the 405 Freeway meet in Irvine, is now called Barton Mound.

Orange County was still a part of L.A. County then, the population was just over 11,000, California was a newly minted state, and the Mexican period was giving way to the Wild West.

“They all died alone with no help coming,” said Fratantoni, the Sheriff’s Department’s staff historian. “Today, you know your partner is coming to help you. People say the job’s dangerous now — it’s never not been dangerous.”

So as Sheriff Robert Luna prepared to hold a news conference hours after the accident at a department training facility in East L.A. took the lives of Dets. Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn, Fratantoni sent over notes about what happened to Barton and his men. That’s how Luna was able to tell the public that the latest line-of-duty deaths to befall the department happened on its deadliest day in more than 160 years, a line quickly repeated by media across the country.

Fratantoni describes himself as the “default button” whenever someone has a question about the Sheriff’s Department’s past, whether it’s a colleague or the public, whether it’s about the positive or the scandalous. He can tell you why female deputies stopped wearing caps (blame the popularity of beehive hairdos in the 1960s) and reveal why longtime Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz was a pioneer in trying to rehabilitate addicts (his father was an alcoholic).

It’s a job the Long Island native has officially held for a decade. He assumed the position with the blessing of then-Sheriff Jim McDonnell to tap into a passion Fratantoni had dabbled in on his own almost from the moment he joined the department in 1999.

“You can’t talk about L.A. County history without us,” Fratantoni said when we met at the Hall of Justice. Outside, the flags remained at half-staff in honor of the dead detectives. He was taking me on a tour of the building’s basement museum, which showcased the histories of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, district attorney’s office and coroner. “We’ve been there from Day 1. We were here before the Board of Supervisors. We were here before LAPD. We’ve never closed. We’ve survived it all.”

“We check with Mike on everything,” Luna told me in a phone interview. Last year, the sheriff joined Fratantoni and other current and retired Sheriff’s Department members for the dedication of a plaque to commemorate the 1857 Barton Mound massacre. “You get 10 minutes with him, and wow.”

I was able to get two hours.

Fratantoni is burly but soft-spoken, a trace of a New York accent lingering in his by-the-books cadence. All around us were books, poster boards and newspaper headlines of criminals that Angelenos still remember and those long forgotten, people such as Winnie Ruth Judd, who murdered two friends in Phoenix in 1931 then traveled to Los Angeles by train with their bodies in trunks.

We passed through a row of original L.A. County jail cells that were brought down piece by piece from their original location on the 10th floor of the Hall of Justice. He pointed out a display case of makeshift weapons, tattoo needles and fake IDs created by inmates over the department’s 175 years. I stared too long at a black jacket and AC/DC hat worn by the Night Stalker — serial killer Richard Ramirez.

The museum receives free rent from L.A. County but is otherwise funded and maintained by the Sheriffs’ Relief Foundation and the dollar a month pulled from the paychecks of Sheriff’s Department employees who sign up to support — “We don’t want to be a burden,” Fratantoni explained. It’s not open to the general public, but he frequently hosts deputies, prosecutors, law students and even school field trips.

“The kids come and love this one for some reason,” he said with a chuckle as we passed a narcotics display. “Not my favorite one.”

Fratantoni never rushed me and turned every question I had into a short story that never felt like a lecture. He frequently apologized for random artifacts strewn around — plaques, movie posters, a biography of mobster Mickey Cohen — or displays not lit to his liking. “Am I putting you to sleep yet?” he joked at one point.

The 45-year-old is more than a curator or nerdy archivist. Luna, like his predecessors Alex Villanueva and McDonnell, has entrusted Fratantoni to not just help preserve the department’s history but also imprint its importance on the men and women who are its present and future.

“I have always been a fan of history,” said Luna, who has organized lunchtime lectures about the department and civil rights. For Black History Month in February, Fratantoni spoke about the troubles faced by deputies William Abbott and John Brady, who in 1954 became the department’s first integrated patrol unit.

The recriminations against Abbott, who was Black, and Brady didn’t come from within but rather the residents in West Hollywood they served. “I believe it’s important to teach our deputies where we’ve been and some of the challenges we’ve faced. You can’t help but to want to listen to his stories,” Luna said of Fratantoni.

“Mike is just phenomenal,” said Deputy Graciela Medrano, a 25-year-veteran who was also at the museum the day I visited. A black ribbon stretched across her badge — a sign of mourning, law enforcement style. “I’ll ask him about cases that happened when I was just starting, and he immediately knows what I’m talking about. He makes us all appreciate our department more.”

Every year, Fratantoni speaks to the latest class of recruits about the department’s history. “They know it’s been around but nothing else. So I share photos, I tell stories. And I tell them, ‘You’re getting a torch passed to you, and you’re going to run the next leg.’ You can see their reactions — our history gives them a sense of purpose.”

He’ll also attend community events with other deputies in vintage uniforms or old department cars. “Someone will see it and say, ‘That’s my granddad’s car’ and smile. We can have conversations with the public we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.”

Fratantoni was supposed to focus this year on the department’s 175th anniversary. Another goal was to seek out an interview with Shirley MacLaine, one of the last surviving queens of the Sheriff’s Championship Rodeo, an annual event that used to fill up the Memorial Coliseum and attract Hollywood A-listers.

But 2025 got in the way. We spoke a week before the burials of Osborn and Kelley-Eklund (the services for Lemus have yet to be announced). Fratantoni also sits on the committee charged with putting names on the Los Angeles County Peace Officers’ Memorial.

“I don’t like doing it, and I hope I don’t have to fill out paperwork for it ever again, but if that’s what I have to do, I’m honored to be a part of it,” he said. “I hold it close to my heart.”

Fratantoni in front of a section of the museum that highlights the history of the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

Even the work commemorating what happened during the Barton Mound massacre remains unfinished. The victims were buried at the old City Cemetery downtown but were moved to Rosedale Cemetery in Mid-City in 1914. No one bothered to mark their new graves, which were lost until researchers discovered them a few years ago. Fratantoni and others are fundraising for new tombstones for their slain predecessors.

He mentioned Daly’s story: Born in Ireland. Came to California for the Gold Rush. Became a blacksmith — he put the shoes on the horses that Barton and his constables were going to use to pursue Las Manillas. A strong, able man whom Barton deputized so he could join them on the day they would all die.

“It’s sad to see people who lost their life be forgotten,” Fratantoni said. “That’s just…”

The historian tasked with talking shook his head in silence.