A sheriff's oversight commission must be created in Riverside County to reestablish public trust

Desert Sun Editorial Board
·4 min read
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Enough is enough – members of the public continue to make pleas to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to establish an oversight commission of the sheriff’s department to address in custody deaths among a growing list of problems – and all we are hearing is crickets.

By ignoring the pleas of the public, the board of supervisors is beginning to look complicit.

There are actionable changes that should have already happened.

For starters, the sheriff’s department needs a transparency policy, one that details the past deaths, sets standards for how soon after a death occurs that information is released and provides clarity as to how future in-custody deaths will be handled.

The board of supervisors should establish an oversight commission to look into the wrongdoings of the sheriff’s department so they don’t have to keep paying off $77 million to settle lawsuits brought against the department every 10 years.

The cost of settlements the Riverside county's sheriff's department has paid out is shocking – it’s among the most costly to taxpayers in the nation, according to a Washington Post investigation.

Citing this enormous amount, this week more than 25 advocacy and religious organizations launched a campaign urging the Riverside Board of Supervisors to establish an oversight commission of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department to do more to address the record number of deaths in jails.

Toward the end of this week’s board of supervisors meeting, 4th District County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez acknowledged people’s concerns in creating an oversight commission but equivocated on next steps.

“I think the concerns that are being brought forth are real concerns; they’re not concerns that are just made up,” Perez said, but in the same breath went on to stress, “But I also know that our sheriff’s department and our public safety personnel are doing their best…”

Perez expressed the importance of finding a “mechanism” or a middle ground, one built on trust – but we’re past the point of introductory conversation points and platitudes.

Sheriffs are elected leaders and therefore held publicly accountable through elections. Chad Bianco was recently re-elected, and due to a quirk in state law, his term of office runs until 2028.

The public can’t wait for a fireside chat from our elected officials – just look at news coming out of the sheriff’s department this year alone.

  • Riverside County attempted to pay two women $1,000 each to cover up a sheriff's deputy's sexual assault of them, according to legal complaints filed in September.

  • A Riverside County sheriff's deputy has been charged with 18 felony counts, accused of bribery and extorting women in the county's custody for sex.

  • Prosecutors filed two felony charges against a Riverside County sheriff's deputy accused of carrying more than 100 pounds of fentanyl in his vehicle. They also alleged for the first time that he had likely ties to a Mexican drug cartel.

  • Three more federal lawsuits filed over inmates' deaths in Riverside County jails last week.

  • Not to mention California Attorney General Rob Bonta who in Feb. launched an investigation into whether sheriff's department practices have violated civil rights.

Some may argue that an oversight commission is nothing but an appendage to political special interests groups – an appendage meant to sully the honesty and integrity of the department.

But when honesty and integrity are in question, more transparency would help the sheriff’s department to reestablish trust with the public.

Other counties have extensive models Riverside County can follow. Orange County has the Office of Independent Review which “scrutinizes policies, practices, and specific incidents that may reveal systemic issues so that it can work to address them.”

L.A. County has the Civilian Oversight Commission. San Diego has the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, developed in 1990 to “independently and impartially investigate citizen complaints against San Diego County Sheriff's deputies and probation officers.”

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors should look to these models and work with Bianco to create an oversight commission while there is still time for change. This is literally a matter of life or death.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Reestablish trust by creating a Riverside County sheriff's oversight commission