Rina Palta | February 25th,
2014, 11:33am
The Board of Supervisors
Tuesday voted to study creating a civilian body to monitor the L.A. County
Sheriff's Department.
The Board has debated for months
a proposal by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to create a civilian oversight
commission, but Ridley-Thomas could not muster the three votes needed for
passage.
On Tuesday, the Board agreed
instead to ask Interim Sheriff John Scott, Inspector General Max Huntsman and
the county counsel to study what sorts of oversight might be appropriate for
the department.
The Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department has seen a large share of scandals in the past few years.
In 2012, a Blue Ribbon panel investigating accusations of inmate beatings found
a "culture of violence" at L.A. County's jails. In late 2013 and
early 2014, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles charged a total of 20
deputies working in the jails with federal crimes. Many are accused of beating
inmates and jail visitors. Others face charges for allegedly obstructing an FBI
investigation into the department.
The violence issues and
apparent internal oversight failures prompted calls for greater oversight of
the department, which runs the largest jail system and one of the largest
patrol forces in the nation.
In December, the Board hired
Huntsman away from the L.A. County District Attorney's Office to start an
Office of the Inspector General to monitor the Sheriff's Department.
Related: LASD inspector general:
'The power that I have comes from you'
But Supervisor Mark
Ridley-Thomas said that move was not enough – that the Sheriff's Department
needs a civilian oversight body, akin to the LAPD's Police Commission, to serve
as a transparent, public watchdog. Supervisor Gloria Molina cosponsored the
proposal.
Critics, however, wondered how
much "oversight" a commission would actually have. Voters elect
county sheriffs in California, meaning that by law they are independent from
other county leaders. The Board of Supervisors oversees the sheriff's budget,
but, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told KPCC in December the Board can hardly
threaten the sheriff by withholding funding.
"In practice, we’re not
going to withhold money from the Sheriff’s Department that polices the
communities of our county,” Yaroslavsky said. “We’re not going to punish our
public to send a message to the sheriff.”
Checking the sheriff's power is
"really a struggle,” Raphe Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown
Institute for Public Affairs at CSU-Los Angeles, told KPCC. “It’s not like city
government where there are all sorts of hierarchical authorities that can
directly influence the police department.”
Huntsman, who finds himself in
the position of monitoring the Sheriff's Department as its new inspector
general, while lacking formal authority, told a town hall earlier this month he
doesn't like the word "oversight."
"I can't force change. I
can't order the Sheriff's Department to do anything," Huntsman said. His
power comes in the form of politicking, persuasion and public discontent with
the Sheriff's Department, he said.
Now Huntsman will help evaluate
whether a civilian board might also serve a role in the county — what sorts of
power it would have and whether it might benefit the county through its own
brand of public input and political sway.
The Board instructed Huntsman,
Scott and the county counsel to not only study what sorts of models already
exist, but what laws or constitutional amendments might need to pass at the
state level to give such a body any real teeth.
"I'm not into symbolic
things, I like to get product out the door," Yaroslavsky said.
The team is scheduled to report
back to the Board with their recommendations in July.
Last month, longtime L.A.
County Sheriff Lee Baca retired early, citing the need for a new beginning at
the department. Interim Sheriff John Scott, who retired from the LA. County
Sheriff's Department, has taken a leave of absence from Orange County to run
the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
He will return to his post as
second-in-command in Orange County once L.A. County voters elect a replacement.
