Long Beach officials spent years arguing that Dedier Reyes should never return to the police force. On Monday, a unanimous state appeals panel said the city has to give him the option anyway — and pay him more than four years of missed wages.
The three-judge panel upheld earlier decisions ordering Long Beach to reinstate Reyes in a job comparable to his former patrol-officer position, according to Long Beach Post. City Attorney Dawn McIntosh said her office was disappointed but does not plan to pursue another appeal, apparently bringing the roughly five-year employment fight to a close.
The California courts’ public listing identifies the case as an unpublished opinion, which generally means it cannot be cited as precedent in other cases. It still resolves the dispute between Reyes and the city, leaving Long Beach with a personnel decision it fought through two rounds of appeals.
The immediate financial hit could be substantial. The city must provide back pay for the period since Reyes was dismissed in 2022, while Transparent California data lists his base salary at $121,948 during his last full year with the department. The ruling also arrives as LBPD works to fill vacancies; NBC Los Angeles reported that the department was operating with a vacancy rate of roughly 17%.
Reyes was fired after prosecutors charged him with filing a false police report and perjury over a 2018 gun arrest. A Los Angeles jury acquitted Reyes and his partner, David Salcedo, in 2023, a verdict that the Los Angeles Times said followed a six-day trial and more than five hours of deliberation.
The underlying case centered on a report describing two suspected gang members outside a Long Beach taqueria and a bag containing a handgun. Surveillance video contradicted key parts of Reyes’ account, including how he could have seen events inside the restaurant, and appeared to show that officers arrested the wrong man, as detailed by an earlier Long Beach Post report.
The appeals panel did not declare the report accurate. Instead, it found it plausible that Reyes had mistakenly recalled what happened and noted that the city had identified no apparent motive for him to falsify the report, according to the latest coverage. The court also considered the city’s references to 14 use-of-force reviews and 11 citizen complaints since 2010, but noted that the department found the force within policy and the complaints lacking merit.
The legal and taxpayer stakes
Reyes’ return would not erase the broader fallout from the case. Prosecutors dropped dozens of cases in which Reyes or Salcedo would have needed to testify, while Long Beach has paid $499,800 and $550,000 to settle separate lawsuits tied to allegations involving Reyes, according to Long Beach Post coverage and a later report on the second settlement.
Whether Reyes actually rejoins LBPD is now his choice, but the city’s options have narrowed dramatically. After years of trying to keep him off the force, Long Beach must now decide how — and where — to put a returning officer whose criminal case ended in acquittal but whose credibility dispute reshaped hundreds of prosecutions and cost the city millions in legal and settlement expenses.
