The Los Angeles County sheriff slammed the county’s “absolutely absurd” vaccine mandate Oct. 29 for causing a mass exodus of deputies and an imminent public safety threat. A COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees has caused 20–30 percent of the department to leave, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. Under the mandate, employees had to be fully vaccinated by Oct 1. “As a result, homicide rates will continue to rise, response times will increase, solve rates will diminish, arrests will decline, patrol services will significantly decline, and patrol states will close,” Villanueva said in the statement. Villanueva, who oversees the largest sheriff’s department in the country with about 18,000 employees, announced earlier this month he would not enforce the county’s vaccine mandate in his agency. The department may soon not be able to maintain public safety at current levels, he said in Thursday’s letter, adding …