Groups Endorse Sheriff’s Office Oversight
Civilian oversight of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and of Santa Rita Jail may be moving closer after a series of online public meetings on the topic in mid-December. Some 200 people attended one or more of those meetings.
Most favored some form of civilian oversight, according to participants, though a few said a civilian review was unneeded and would hamper deputies from doing their jobs.
A new state law, AB1185, allows counties to have civilian oversight of sheriff’s departments. County Supervisors Nate Miley, Dan Brown, and Richard Valle called the online public meetings covering all five supervisorial districts on December 13 through 15. The Supervisors are seeking public input about establishing either a Community Sheriff's Oversight Board and/or an Office of the Inspector General. Miley told the Forum [Times] earlier this month that he could see the county adopting both options.
Several local groups had written the Board of Supervisors about what they saw as problems with the Sheriff’s Office and particularly with Santa Rita Jail, run by the department, that call for public oversight.
The letter came from the Coalition for Police Accountability, Faith in Action East Bay, Interfaith Coalition for Justice In Our Jails, and a number of signers including religious and community leaders and the union representing many county employees, Service Employees Local 1021.
Bruce Schmiechen, speaking for those advocates, said that deaths at Santa Rita Jail and the need for proper mental health services there are the biggest concerns, though there have also been some misconduct complaints against sheriff’s deputies outside the jail.
More than 50 people have died in custody since 2014 at the jail, which the Sheriff’s Department operates, according to official figures.
“Just to get them to independently investigate the deaths at the jail would be a game-changer,” Schmiechen said.
Schmiechen said a study found some 40 percent of people held at Santa Rita had mental health problems requiring treatment, and some 25 percent had severe mental health problems.
Needed mental health services were not always available, he said, and this came up in a recent lawsuit and in an investigation by the federal Department of Justice.
Wendy Still, recently retired county probation chief working as a consultant to the supervisors on the issue, told participants that there were two leading methods of civilian oversight that could also be combined.
In the review board model, each death or use-of-force complaint would be investigated by a civilian board. The inspector-general model would utilize a full-time official, usually with expertise in law enforcement, who could look at department policies as well as individual cases.
The two models could also be combined in a “hybrid” structure, which was the approach favored by some at the online meetings.
Staff members will collect the public comments and report back to the Board of Supervisors, probably in January. The board could then formulate an oversight proposal to consider, according to Austin Bruckner of Supervisor Nate Miley’s office.