We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
This is written/from my friend Susan Lamont:
We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
Dear Supporter of Effective Oversight of the Sheriff's Office:
Recent events have shown even more clearly the need for effective oversight of our Sheriff's Office. Our Sheriff recently defied state and local law by refusing to enforce our local health order that protects public health. This outrageous decision showed that the Sheriff thinks he is above the law.
In addition, recent evidence has revealed that, rather than support accountability among his deputies, the Sheriff punished a supervisor who tried to hold accountable Deputy Blount, the officer who brutally killed a disabled man by choking him and beating his head on his car door. Sheriff's deputies also recently brutalized a Black man in front of his family who was doing nothing more than laying on the ground waiting to be cuffed.
Unfortunately, our efforts to put the Evelyn Cheatham Effective IOELRO Ordinance on the ballot have hit a wall. Because of COVID-19, we had to suspend collecting signatures to place our ordinance to strengthen community oversight of the Sheriff's Office on the November 2020 ballot. The law requires that those signatures be collected in person. This, in effect, has temporarily ended the only avenue of direct citizen democracy this year.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has the authority to place the initiative on the ballot themselves. They actually also have the power to simply enact it without placing it on the ballot. We have created an online petition asking them to place the Evelyn Cheatham Effective IOLERO Ordinance (FPPC#1422712) on the ballot and preserve direct citizen democracy in this unusual time. This is designed to show the supervisors that the public supports our efforts.
This is a change.org petition. You do not need to be registered to vote to sign it. You do not even need to be a citizen, though we would like it limited to those who live in Sonoma County. You can read up on all the details at our website socoeffectiveoversight.org And, if you agree with us, could you please share the petition with your networks and on social media?
Also, we continue to need funding to support our effort to get this measure on the ballot. If you can support us in this way, please make a contribution on our website. The change.org request for a donation does not actually go to our campaign.
Here's the link: https://www.change.org/DirectDemocra...aCountySheriff
Thank you! - The Committee To Support an Effective IOLERO
Re: We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
Not to dispute your position, but to better understand what is behind it, could you please cite some press accounts of the incidents you cite: "In addition, recent evidence has revealed that, rather than support accountability among his deputies, the Sheriff punished a supervisor who tried to hold accountable Deputy Blount, the officer who brutally killed a disabled man by choking him and beating his head on his car door. Sheriff's deputies also recently brutalized a Black man in front of his family who was doing nothing more than laying on the ground waiting to be cuffed."
(I am quite familiar with the Andy Lopez case).
Thanks in advance.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by gaiasophia:
Re: We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
Thanks luke for caring! And thanks for the respectful manner in which you've written.
So, I just forwarded your question to her.
With sincere respect, I must say I don't have time to get into dialogue about this. I have plenty of my own experiences informing my peaceful activism.
Thanks again luke, for caring and questioning!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by luke32:
Not to dispute your position, but to better understand what is behind it, ....
Re: We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
Re: We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
This has been found during discovery work done by the attorney representing David Ward's mother. I do not think this has made it into the Press Democrat - lots of things do not - but I imagine that it will eventually.
The other thing we know is that in a previous case, in which Deputy Blount abused a jaywalker in the same way, the D.A. prosecuted the woman, but a bystander had filmed the event and when it was shown in court, it proved that Blount had lied about the incident. The judge told the prosecutor (from Jill Ravitch's office) that Blount should be put on the D.A.'s Brady list (a list which is maintained of officers whose testimony have been found to be untrustworthy). Ravitch did not do this and publicly said that she didn't do it because he hadn't ordered her to do it, but had just told her to do it.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by luke32:
Not to dispute your position, but to better understand what is behind it, could you please cite some press accounts of the incidents you cite: ...
Re: We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
If you'd like more information about the egregious behavior within the Sheriff's Office, here is a summation of a series of events by Jerry Threet, retired director of the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach. I'll add that when the lawsuit was filed, all the information (including the letters from the inmates) was sent to D.A. Ravitch. The case had already been in the Press Democrat. A while later, I was at an NAACP meeting which was attended by Ravitch and I asked her about the case. She claimed to know nothing of it, but she said she didn't pay much attention to complaints from the jail because "inmates lie." Director Threet found that the majority cases of abuse were to be found at the jail.
YARD COUNSELING POST
In 2015, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputies in our county jail embarked on a campaign of punishment and torture against inmates who had the temerity to protest the abuse of a mentally ill inmate. Each of multiple inmates was taken alone into the exercise yard, where they had “pain compliance techniques” imposed on them while deputies shouted and spit in their faces obscenities like “this is my house, bitch” and “how do you like me now?”
A few days later, deputies imposed similar punishment on them for taking a couple of minutes too long in the shower.
Inmates filed grievances, the standard process for a jail inmate who has a complaint. These were ignored until the inmates filed a complaint in federal district court with the able assistance of local attorney Izaak Schwaiger.
This lawsuit finally triggered the Sheriff’s Office to start an investigation of the incidents. The Sheriff’s office used a retired Sheriff’s Sergeant who once worked in Internal Affairs to conduct the investigation. As the lawsuit progressed a second investigation was opened to look at additional alleged abuses of the same inmates a few days later.
This case came to me to review as the Director of IOLERO. I spent over 180 hours reviewing hours of video of deputy actions and hundreds of pages of interviews and other investigative records. I concluded that every single allegation of the federal lawsuit complaint were valid and should have been sustained. Among the allegations was that the inmates were subjected to torture.
I also concluded that this investigation by the Sheriff’s Office was conducted in biased manner intended to clear the involved deputies, and was so shoddy that the Sheriff’s Office should have referred the investigator to the DA for investigation. (The investigator hired to complete this investigation was one of the best friends of “Sheriff Rob” Giordano, the hero of our Fire Disaster.) The audit resulted in no changes to the outcome of the investigation and no deputies were disciplined as a result.
(The full audit report and the underlying investigation should now be available to the public under SB 1421 through a Public Records Act request, in my opinion.)
To be honest, this was an investigation that broke my heart and spirit. It invaded my dreams, where I constantly saw the face of the deputy who directed the torture of these inmates, the snarling, pained, suffering face of a deputy out of control, terrified of losing that control, and taking it out on inmates. It took a long time to get that face out of my dreams and sleep well again. But I have never left behind the face of the inmate who was at the center of this particular investigation, whose outrage and suffering permeated the videos I reviewed repeatedly. I still see his face whenever I think about these incidents.You can see some of this video here: https://youtu.be/l-UJUvwd338
Soon after I completed my audit of this investigation and sent the Audit Report to Sheriff Giordano, the County settled this lawsuit for about $1.7 Million. My report was not the only thing pointing toward the wisdom of settlement, as the mock trials conducted by the County to prepare for trial apparently were not going well. Sheriff Giordano announced the settlement via video, stating “On this particular occasion, I gotta talk about a case that’s not as fun for us”. He went on to describe “yard counseling” as the “way we counsel inmates in the jail when their behavior is extreme.” You can see that video announcement here:
https://youtu.be/smKq5Dpf3YI
One would think this would have put an end to this chapter. It does not appear to be the case, unfortunately. In August, 2018, Jesus Arango-Lopez, one of the inmates who was a plaintiff int his lawsuit, was subjected to a SWAT raid in Petaluma, based on the allegation that he was running a meth distribution scheme. Police found only a bag of meth consistent with the personal drug use of a person victimized by police abuse. Nevertheless, his home was ransacked in the process and a message was delivered.
In August 2019, another plaintiff in the “yard counseling” lawsuit, Rigoberto Cabrera, was detained in Petaluma and died while in custody of Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputies. No details of the investigation of this death in custody have yet been released, despite the passage of over 10 months.
Then, this week, Marcus “Redbear” Martinez was peacefully protesting against police abuse in Santa Rosa, kneeling in the street with his hands up with no weapons even alleged to be in his vicinity. Police launched teargas, and he stood up to film them. In response, a law enforcement officer fired a sting-ball grenade at his face, which exploded as it hit him, shattering his jaw and knocking out all of his teeth.
To be clear, most of the inmates tortured during the “yard counseling” incident were Latino, and were assumed to be gang members, despite little evidence to support those assumptions in some cases. This is consistent with a pattern I heard repeatedly as Director of IOLERO of deputies assuming the worst of our Latino community members, and acting on those assumptions.
There is a history of “unfortunate” incidents involving the successful Latino plaintiffs in the “yard counseling” lawsuit, former inmates who were tortured for protesting in the jail environment, were successful in suing to validate their civil rights, and now have suffered violence at the hands of deputies afterward. This and other incidents suggests that the problems in our Sheriff’s Office are deep, abiding, troubling and need the most sober and intense attention.
That kind of objective, independent attention needs effective civilian oversight, which is currently lacking under our current model with IOLERO.
WE NEED EFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT OF OUR COUNTY SHERIFF.
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SUPERVISOR AND PUSH THEM TO PUT ON THE NOVEMBER BALLOT THE EVELYN CHEATHAM EFFECTIVE IOLERO ORDINANCE.
Sing our petition to show your support here:
Change.org: Save Direct Democracy: Place Stronger Community Oversight of Law Enforcement on the Ballot
Learn more about the ballot measure here: socoeffectiveoversight.org
Re: We need more help getting effective oversight of the Sheriff's Office
OOPS!!
Part of my reply to luke is missing; (I must have accidentally deleted part of it.)
Here's what got left out:
At the beginning of my original post, I'd written:
"This is written/from my friend Susan Lamont."
(although the letter, " T " , was missing in that original post.
That's what I was refering to in my reply, to luke, when I wrote:
"So, I just forwarded your question to her."
Note that her wacco name is "peacenik".
All seems rather convoluted written out...I hope this makes sense!
If it doesn't, don't worry:
Basically, just look for peacenik's recent wacco post, for a very detailed answer to your question.
Thanks again luke!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by gaiasophia:
Thanks luke for caring! And thanks for the respectful manner in which you've written.
So, I just forwarded your question to her.
With sincere respect, I must say I don't have time to get into dialogue about this. I have plenty of my own experiences informing my peaceful activism.
Thanks again luke, for caring and questioning!
