Richard Ruiz is a Lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department where he has served for over 27 years. He has investigated hundreds of child abuse cases as a Investigator and a Sergeant in the Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Bureau and most recently as an Investigator in the Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau. He has extensive knowledge and expertise in the investigation of both physical and sexual abuse of children, as well as investigating child death investigations. Lieutenant Ruiz has been a member of a Federal Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce and was cross-designated as a United States Marshal through the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). He is a recognized expert on child abuse and commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC).
In 2012, he participated in a multi-disciplinary Human Trafficking Symposium aimed at providing national guidelines on Human Trafficking Investigations for first responders. Lieutenant Ruiz has provided training to law enforcement officers on child abuse and sexual abuse investigations and as been a panelist at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services academy for newly assigned case workers. He is an active member of the California Children’s Justice Act Taskforce and many other multi-disciplinary committees. Lieutenant Ruiz is an avid supporter of the multi-discipllinary approach to child abuse investigations where child welfare agencies work together in a collaborative and information sharing setting to protect children.