By Sarah Favot
Daily News
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said Monday he and the department’s inspector general have reached an agreement to share department records that will be considered by the Board of Supervisors in coming weeks.
“Our hope is he’s going to get everything he needs to do the job the way he wants to, and we’re being as transparent as legally permissible,” McDonnell said in an interview with the Los Angeles News Group.
McDonnell’s statements came on the eve of the anniversary of his first year as the 32nd sheriff of Los Angeles County. During his campaign, McDonnell said he supported civilian oversight of the Sheriff’s Department and giving access to records allowable under the law to the department’s inspector general, Max Huntsman.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ chief deputy also said Monday the supervisor plans to bring a motion in January that would move the establishment of the Civilian Oversight Commission forward. The supervisors heard a recommendation in July from the working group they established to study the oversight commission. No public action has been taken since.
McDonnell said the department will release information on deputy-involved shootings for the past five years as well as data on use of force, public complaints and employee discipline.
McDonnell said the information is being released as part of an effort to be more transparent with the public about department activities.
“Our goal is to be able to release one of the nation’s most comprehensive data sets from a law enforcement entity,” McDonnell said.
The data will not contain the names of the deputies involved.
The sheriff also appointed a chief data officer for the department, which he believes is the first such position in a law enforcement agency.
In a statement, Supervisor Michael Antonovich praised McDonnell’s efforts to be more transparent with the public.
“Sheriff McDonnell has been a breath of fresh air for the department,” Antonovich said. “His leadership has brought a new vision of strong, effective law enforcement services, on a firm foundation of accountability and transparency.”
McDonnell plans to speak to the news media Tuesday about his first year in office.
In the interview with the Los Angeles News Group, McDonnell also reflected on the vastness of his role as sheriff of the nation’s most populous county.
The sheriff is responsible for policing 42 contract cities and the county’s unincorporated areas, day-to-day operations of the country’s largest jail system, security and bailiff services for the county’s court system, safety and security for community college districts and search-and-rescue missions more than 42 miles of coastline and rugged mountain terrain that reaches Mount Baldy’s peak.
“The thing that’s most impressive is just the unique responsibilities of this organization,” McDonnell said. “I don’t know that there’s a more challenging place to work.”
McDonnell took office a year ago Tuesday in a decisive win over former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who in May was indicted in a federal corruption case. McDonnell was the first sheriff chosen from outside the ranks of the department in more than a century.
The former Long Beach police chief and longtime Los Angeles police officer, who rose the ranks to become the second-in-command under Chief William Bratton, was elected on a reform agenda. He pledged to “restore the confidence of our community in the integrity and operation of the LASD and resurrect a sense of pride in all who work in the department,” according to a statement on his campaign website, which has since been taken offline.
Reforms
One challenge that underscores the reform effort underway is news of past criminal wrongdoing by deputy sheriffs that continues to reverberate throughout the media. On Monday, two former deputies were sentenced to six- and seven-year prison terms for beating a handcuffed visitor to Men’s Central Jail in 2011 and trying to cover it up. More than a dozen former sheriff’s officials have been convicted of obstruction charges and other crimes in a wide-ranging FBI investigation into brutality in the county jails.
Though those incidents didn’t happen under his watch, McDonnell said when a light is shined on wrongdoing involving the Sheriff’s Department, it affects the employees.
“We continue to just push forward holding our people accountable to the highest standard and moving beyond what happened in the past,” McDonnell said.
McDonnell reached a settlement agreement with the Justice Department, which includes federal court monitoring, in regards to the suicide prevention and excessive use of force in the county jails.
Mark-Anthony Johnson, of Dignity and Power Now, an activist group that has been pushing for civilian oversight, said the first half of the year was productive in terms of collaborating with the working group but that the transparent process has stalled.
“For us this is a problem,” he said. “We know that things take time. At the same time, a year is a long time for our folks to be vulnerable to a lack of transparency and a lack of accountability.”
Understaffed
One challenge McDonnell faces is an understaffed department, according to the union representing deputy sheriffs.
“Everything else our department needs operationally is wholly dependent on the sheriff recruiting, training and deploying qualified deputies,” Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs President George Hofstetter said in a statement.
“The challenge to hire sufficient numbers of new deputy sheriffs is made even more difficult because virtually every other large police agency in California is also desperately trying to hire more sworn personnel,” Hofstetter added.
McDonnell launched a recruitment effort this spring and pledged to hire deputies with a strong moral compass. The federal settlement with the Justice Department has required him to increase staffing levels in the jail system, which he said the department should have been at to begin with. To fulfill the staffing requirements, the sheriff has implemented mandatory overtime for deputies.
“It’s a challenge that we hope not to have to do for an extended period, but right now it’s the nature of the business,” he said.
So far this year, the sheriff has hired 639 deputy sheriff trainees. With running additional academy classes, he hopes to graduate about 64 men and women from the academy every eight weeks for the next three to five years, he said.
About 350 to 400 sworn deputies retire each year. The sheriff also said he needs to increase staffing in nonsworn personnel positions.
The department employs about 18,000 people, about 9,100 are sworn.
Professionalism
McDonnell has reiterated his standard for professionalism among the ranks. He demonstrated his intolerance for employee misconduct in July when he relieved 10 employees of duty in response to learning an inmate was handcuffed and deprived of food for more than 30 hours.
In a statement, Supervisor Hilda Solis said McDonnell has brought a “renewed commitment to transparency and community engagement to the department.”
She said she has worked with him on ending a controversial program known as 287(g) and the department’s work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“In his second year, I’d like to see him continue to demonstrate his leadership by taking on areas such as civilian oversight, officer-involved shootings, and excessive use of force by deputies in the field,” Solis said. “I look forward to working in partnership with him on these critical issues.”
Other accomplishments the sheriff pointed to during his first 365 days in office are the formation of a countywide human trafficking task force, securing of a federal grant to reduce crime in Compton, and working with the supervisors to move ahead with a replacement for the decrepit Men’s Central Jail that will be modeled as a treatment facility for inmates who have a mental illness and who abuse substances.
“I believe we’ve made significant strides in the last year,” McDonnell said. “I’m committed to the future of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. We have shown ourselves to be resilient and strong, forward looking and true to our promise to move beyond the past and build upon the tremendous progress that is already underway.”
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