Failure to implement sufficient changes in the running of LA County’s huge and troubled jail system means that federal oversight, in the form of a federal consent decree, is all but certain, reports Cindy Chang of the LA Times late Thursday evening.
Here’s a clip that provides a few of the details.
The June 4 letter described “dimly lit, vermin-infested, noisy, unsanitary, cramped and crowded” living conditions that exacerbated inmates’ mental distress. After suicides more than doubled, from four in 2012 to 10 the following year, jail officials did little to address the situation, the letter said, calling many of the suicides preventable.
In an interview Thursday, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas accused the Sheriff’s Department and the county mental health department of not taking the problems in the jails seriously. A federal consent decree would be a black mark on the county, amounting to “dereliction of duty” and “absconding of responsibility,” he said.
“The federal government is saying that they’re throwing … their hands up,” Ridley-Thomas said. “In other words, they’ve given you every chance to improve up, and you’ve failed to do so.”
UPDATE: FYI, here is the November 25 letter from the DOJ to Rodrigo Castro-Silva, the assistant county counsel who appears to be representing the sheriff’s department in negotiations.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A FEDERAL CONSENT DECREE? BRING IT ON
Yes, it will cost LA County taxpayers millions of dollars, but after decades of callous disregard by those with the power to do something about the urgent problems in our jails—problems flagged by the Department of Justice, the FBI, the ACLU, a very long list of advocacy organizations, and by media outlets like this one—it appears that the feds are finally saying enough.
Somebody has to be the grown-up around here.
Ridley-Thomas is right about this news pointing to a dereliction of duty by the Sheriff’s Department and the County Mental Health Department, both of which, as recently as this past May, had the gall to use the spectre of a consent decree to bully the requisite three members of the board of supervisors into rushing to a vote on the $2 billion jail building plan, rather than, say, focusing first on a diversion program for the non-violent mentally ill to get them out of the jails. (Antonovich, Molina & Knabe, voted for it. Ridley-Thomas did not vote for the jail package, but abstained; Yaroslavsky voted no.)
The LASD and County Mental Health folks sternly told the board that galloping breathlessly forward with the pricey jail project was the one and only thing thing that would placate the feds and fend off a federal consent decree—a statement that was, of course, utter horse pucky.
But, why trouble one’s self with facts?
So, for that, and a plethora of other reasons—heck, yeah. Bring it on.
Thanks Paul!
Leave it up to the “Left Coast, Liberal Ass” California to build a billion dollar jail facility for some of the nation’s worst criminals.The Los Angeles County Jail system needs to get a blueprint from Texas or Louisiana.
Don’t mean to beat a “dead horse” but why did Floyd Hayhurst ( ex alads president) and ALADS give one million dollars to back Mark Ridley Thomas only to have him condemn the Sheriff Department?
And people wonder why deputies want “OUT” of ALADS. “For crying out loud”
Wow, didn’t see that one coming. You have dedicated, hard working C/A’s and deputies in the jails that want to be there, who can fix the problems/culture that past leadership has created and a failure from the top to lead by example. What a hypocrisy. The Sheriff’s department preaches integrity and doing what’s right. And all I see is top leadership doing exactly what they preach not to do while your in the academy. Note to Sheriff’s department: Hire quality people and rid yourself of the past. The people who make the decisions are clueless. Try talking to the line people, its amazing how much smarter they are than most of their supervisors…..
Reforms and a Federal Consent Decree are past due. It is no secret that the Sheriff Department always felt that they were above the law. It was just a matter of time to put them in check.
Jim McDonnell has to clean up a big mess but he will get the job done. The County of Los Angeles can’t wait. Prayers have been answered.
NOW, who will clean up the FEDS??
Dual Tracker….be careful what you wish for. We have a new Sheriff coming that also has experience running the next largest jail in LA County besides LASD and without sworn personnel. They have career civilian “jailers” and supervisors not sworn officers running their jails. I think their jails run pretty smoothly as well.
LA County Taxpayer, once the FED walks in, Jim McDonnell will be neutered. That’s what they do.
What ever happened to Cavanaugh ? Wasn’t he the A/S who had the jail side ?
When Governor Reagan was elected in California, he closed many mental health hospital because the state was going to open up community mental health clinics, this never happened. Since then, individuals with mental health problems have been roaming all over this county,sometimes being arrested for misdeamenor and felony crimes. The sheriff’s department has been the dumping ground for these individuals because neither the state nor the counties will take responsibility for helping these people who for the most part, need help, not jail. Now, instead of taking responsibility for the problems they created, the blame the sheriff’s deparment who was never equipped to handle a situation like this. They are passing the buck, again, and we the tax payers and the indiviuals with the mental health issues are their victims.
@Grip …It couldn’t get any worse with the former “Top Two Stooges” in charge. There is no other options. Go McDonnell!
If the Feds come in, so be it. The list of dysfunctions in the sheriff’s department is is long and old. No complaints or trash talk will stop the new wave. Prepare yourself for change in leadership.
It was predicted back in April of this year on WLA, that by April of 2015, Paul Tanaka along with ALADS Floyd Hayhurst would not be around.
I now would like to thank that “fortune teller” for that “ever so telling” prediction.
This was a very long time coming, and I’m glad it is here. Dings are housed in barbaric conditions and their “treatment” is a joke. And this has been an open secret for twenty years. Some jail facilities are kept spotless and others were filthy. This is all a line management issue, LASD had to deal with old facilities and problematic infrastructures, this was all out of our control. But to allow facilities like MCJ to decay by neglect is unacceptable. Olmsted had that facility scrubbed from top to bottom, lights repaired, the place was cleaned up. He expected what he inspected. Now, the place is a shithole, again, and the Feds have to come in, again.
So for the Decent Decree to be forced upon us, bring it on. Perhaps if Commanders, Chief’s and Assistant Sheriff’s would get off their dead ass and walk their facilities, unannounced and hold people accountable, perhaps things would be different. I thought John Scott’s people were going to fix all of this? McDonnell, you best put bullshit lovefest politics aside when you take office, you best take care of business and that starts with cleaning house on the 4th Floor of SHQ and the 8th Floor of Custody Division. Otherwise, it is going to be the same shit, different day.
Many may recall how the 1997/98 series of articles in the LA Times, as well as complaints lodged by public interest organizations and from the families of inmates, caused the unwanted attention of and pressure from the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division for LASD’s “deliberate indifference” to the needs of and care for the mentally ill housed in the LA County jail system. The Feds assembled a panel of mental health and corrections experts to conduct an inquiry into and assessment of LA County jail conditions, its policies and the system’s ability to provide for the mentally ill they were responsible for. Their scathing report found services to be woefully inadequate.
The Feds threatened court action and then Sheriff Sherman Block put the resources into fixing the problem. An assistant sheriff placed a former MTA Captain, a lieutenant and six sergeants in place to look into the DOJ’s allegations. This mentally-ill inmate task force cadre reviewed all incidents of use of force, attempted and actual suicides, inmate-on-inmate assaults and murders, policies, physical plant configuration and conditions, and training practices associated with these special category of inmate and the personnel working around them. With input from DMH and MSB, the task force wrote new polices which were subsequently implemented to improve the department’s handling of mentally ill inmates. These included revising and strengthening of suicide prevention protocols, medical/mental health screenings procedures,and training for individual sworn and MSD medical staff assigned to work the mentally-ill housing locations and clinics. The DMH and LASD revised and strengthened the contents of their memorandum of understanding. The task force orchestrated the move of the mentally-ill from the antiquated MCJ to the then, newest jail facility in the fleet — TTCF. The task force worked with all of the stakeholders — County Department of Mental Health employees assigned to the jails, the LASD’s medical staff (ultimately creating a bureau, Medical Services, to strengthen the provision of services) and key Custody/Corrections staff.
Since a huge portion of mentally ill inmates were now housed at TTCF, shortly after the move, a specific assessment of the facility’s operation and performance was also conducted, evaluating policies, staffing, supervision, training and use-of-force stats. After months of effort to complete, a comprehensive assessment report outlining the results for all above areas was prepared and delivered to then-Custody executives only a few weeks after a new sheriff came into office December 10, 1998. Words arrogantly conveyed to the effect of “There’s a new sheriff in place now, so we won’t be needing this” (report) was the response when the reports were presented. The assistant sheriff overseeing the task force was told by the new sheriff if he did not retire, he would be demoted to commander – he retired. Very quickly, it was apparent Custody management resented that a task force from outside Custody, was established to conduct a review separate and to a degree, independent of, Custody managers, though for the sake of fixing long-standing unresolved problems, not for bruising their egos.
In retrospect, these managers’ reactions actually gave a glimpse into the future of how the new Baca regime would respond to any source not going along with their view of Department operations. The same could be said about his and his minion’s reactions to Performance Reviews, PPI, and for independent reviews of Region II’s use-of-force and DIS stats — Then Chief Baca did not like interference from above. Having come full-circle now, we can see the arrogance Baca and his crew had for being shown there were problems that needed to be resolved. Now he and his little guy are gone, but they’ve left a pile of steaming crap behind. Baca thought he knew better, as did his Working-The-Gray side-kick. Time has shown their arrogance. Good luck Sheriff McDonnell.
When John Clark tried to take some reasonable steps to mitigate the pattern of abuse by cliques of deputies at CJ he was stopped by Tanaka!, and replaced. He was replaced by Olmstead than Cruz. The allegations of abuse spread over all three of these guys leadership of CJ. The challenges no doubt existed even before these guys. The departments culture of Custody as career dead time contributed to a lack of appropriate attention and resources focused on custody.
Add the this mess the Board of Supervisors reluctance to properly fund Custody Division as the Departments custody challenges increased. The latest economic crisis is a typical example. The Sheriff’s Department took a larger percentage cut than all other county departments. There is plenty of blame to go around.
Budgeting is about setting priorities not just moving money from one account to another. The BOS, Baca and the financial wizard Tanaka did not make custody a priority. Baca was to busy with his pet projects and traveling. Tanaka was to busy taking care of his check writing, cigar smoking legions. If you challenged his budget priorities in came Waters and Goldman… The BOS just plan did not care.
Hey Hmmm…says, your pretty intuitive, but not very smart. So if the new sheriff decides to civilianize the jails that means that they could pay people less and then have their budget for custody shrink. Because they don’t get that much money for custody operations. Hmmm, thanks for enlightening me. Follow the money sally….Just what a new sheriff wants, less money to fund his operation.
Interim Sheriff Scott was basically a substitute until the election. Silly for anyone to think that he would change anything or take a stand on issues. Just hope that McDonnell does his thing, his way. Shame on LASD to defer (no choice) to someone outside the ranks.
This million dollar question is…….How long did certain individuals (deputies thru brass) in LASD, think that they could “PLAY GOD”. The County along with dedicated deputies suffered tremendously. Whatever your thoughts were/are, LASD is headed in a new and better direction.
@Anonymous: Do you recall who made that prediction?
All a consent decree will do is cause patrol to be pooped on yet again. Do even more with even less because custody needs money to meet the consent decree demands. Patrol gets ripped off every time the dept screws up. This will be huge if it happens. Where is all the money for custody that they should have had a decade ago? Look at all of Baca’s unfunded projects. We don’t need a consent decree. We need a forensic audit to put sunlight on all the malfiscance and prosecute those that misused public funds for their own enrichment and allocated federal funds for other than their stated purpose.
@Huh……..Yes, another blogger called it. That was pretty much a “No Brainer”. Once the Leader is taken out………the army of minions usually follow.
@10-35…….Too late.
#16 If you have info of this nature and enough to start an investigation, you have it get it started. My advise would to take it to one of he top two, WHY LET A COOKED MEMBER OF THE COMMAND STAFF SKATE. I am aware that there are vestiges of the old regime still in place. Hence, the top two.
#22 and #16, I speak of this issue because I am very familiar with it. The person #16 speaks about is not a member of the command staff, but was a supervisor at a station when the incident occurred. The ammunition he is alleged to have sold was a very small quantity (a few boxes). The ammunition (9mm) was in fact the ammunition the department uses for its duty use. It is available for any citizen to purchase. The box does state it is for law enforcement use, but it is not illegal for the public to use or possess it. #16 is not a department member and the issue was in fact investigates and the subject cleared. The ammunition was given or sold to a family member, at cost.
#16 fired off reams of paperwork to anyone who would listen. Including the BOS, Division Chief, Station Captain, IAB, OIR, ICIB, ombudsman, etc. #16 also alleged numerous other things. Some were so bizarre you would not believe it. They were all looked in to. Nothing there. This is old news it was three or four years ago.
The subject of the investigation may have not used great judgment, but there was no violation of policy. Believe me, if he had violated policy or the law, one of those concerned party’s would have blown the whistle on the cover up.
#16 has also used the handle Lone Star Justice in earlier posts to spread this web of lies also. Please disregard any posts by either name.
Both eyes open: What are you talking about? I’m going to speak fact here when I call you out on this one… you are totally WRONG when you say that MCJ is falling apart again, isn’t clean, no one cares about it, and executives NEVER walk though. I am inside MCJ every day and it’s apparent that you’re not. That jail is probably cleaner now than it EVER has been before. It’s definitely cleaner than it was during the 90s. The line supervisors address issues without hesitation, executives are CONSTANTLY showing up unannonunced (Commander Ornelas was there two days ago touring the facility) and even the slightest issue that isn’t right gets addressed within a few hours. So, with that being said, continue your pot stirring, sit back read another comic book from your collection and have another latte from your table at Starbucks because I KNOW you aren’t even remotely familiar with conditions in the jail that you speak of.
# 23, Thanks for clarifying this.
@ Bob Barnes……..”Eyes Wide Open” was telling the truth, he was talking just about up to and before the Baca/Tanaka debacle. Everything left was “Ex Post Facto”.
The pinnacle of failure had been reached and the promise to repair was breeched. The FEDERAL CONSENT DECREE is past due. You, Bob Barnes are correct also……however the cleanup job by Sheriff personel was TOO LATE.
For #26…….I meant “Both Eyes Open” @ #12…….. NOT “Eyes wide open
@Justice4All — Bravo! Everything you said is completely true. Scott is indeed a disappointment and is doing the same things he criticized Baca/Tanaka for. I personally think he shouldn’t even be promoting people at this stage of the game. Let the incoming sheriff assume the position after the election and make those command decisions. These latest promotions sure reek of him finishing out favors before he exits.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Everyone, this trashing of people by name who have been promoted, but whom you don’t happen to like, or don’t think worthy of promotion, or whatever—while you remain anonymous—is getting very uncool.
I’ve deleted several comments and I’m about to delete more. Some of the comments I delete will likely deserve to vanish less or more than others, but I’m not going to take the time to discern. Sorry about that.
Most of you engaging in this nonsense know better.
Seriously.
C.
Interesting read:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/business/ten-things-the-best-leaders-never-say/index.html
What LASD can learn in a book….
I’m sure MCJ is clean and the welfare and concerns of the “inmates” are being addressed expeditiously. However, what is the moral of the CA’s and deputy’s working the line day by day? Do they feel “empowered” and respected? Do they feel they are anything more than a replaceable employee number/item#? I’m sure many of the supervisors are doing what many have learned to do on this department…worry about their next promotion, “network/smooze” and make themselves “look good” at all costs.
Justice For All, your post was removed based on Celeste’s criteria, but it was very heartfelt and you honest assessment of recent promotions. I say this not from one engaging in personal issues against someone on an intent to promote list, there have been plenty of folks I don’t care for on an individual basis who quite objectively (I pride myself on that trait) have done a great job. But the point I would like to make is Scott and Tyler are so far out of touch OR as I suspect, have the “usual suspects” giving them advise. And the “usual suspects” are deep, deep, insiders of the Tanaka regime. That is the disappointment of it all. Celeste bare with me. This organization and its employees have suffered tremendously under Baca and Tanaka, WLA knows better than anyone outside of LASD. When Scott came back, there were high hopes, almost a straight out pleading to clean house of executives who are incompetent and unethical. Sure, a small number got the boot but they were a minority. So the “Clingon” remainders of the former regime simply changed their game face, adjusted their smile and disingenuous rhetoric and, for lack of a better term, are back in the car. The result is the same crap. Promoting incompetence based on what? Because they can talk a good game? These are the “best” LASD has to offer? Are you kidding me? Seriously, it’s as Tanaka himself made these appointments, seriously. Well, maybe he did via his surrogates. That’s what has people so upset. Scott has NOT cleaned house so the question is, will Mcdonnell? It depends on who he surrounds himself with. I do not question Scott’s intent, I really don’t. I question some of his actions based on the advice he has taken. Shame on him.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Sachamoe, it wasn’t my intention to pick on Justice for All or anyone else.
I too am perplexed by some of the recent promotions. In fact, the overall issue of those recent promotions, which he and others raised, is assuredly an important one to bring up for discussion.
What concerned me, however, is the naming of specific individuals, and speculating as to whether this person was promoted for this or that reason, or whether that person really deserved it, and things about people’s spouses or relationships, and so on. However well intentioned, that’s a road that quickly becomes gossipy and problematic when done online through anonymous posting.
On the other hand, if people see certain promotions as representative of a worrisome trend, it will be important for the new sheriff to hear about it—with names attached.
But for our purposes here, let’s discuss the uber issue, and save any specifics for private conversation.
Thanks for speaking up, by the way.
C.
Sachamoe said it well and accurate on post #32. Without naming names, the current Sheriff’s command-level promotions reflect his “personal” relationships. He promoted individuals who once worked under him; folks who have many, many peers with demonstratively more accomplished track records, with exceedingly more integrity and diverse experience than they. To bring back the weakest chief in modern times to be his XO, well, that’s another flub. McDonnell can’t arrive quickly enough for me.
And looking at the big picture, why on earth are we promoting captains and commanders when they are over the authorized number of commanders by four and captains by seven? This in effect ties up the next sheriff’s hands right when he needs to effect major change. How many overpaid managers do we want to see in cubicles at headquarters, counting paper clips?
With newly installed Command Staff and promotions obviously questionable……. McDonnell will appear to have “Rock Star” status when he “Officially” starts the new job, as compared to the status of “laughing stock” that LASD was left with.
“Clean Sweep” of Mice, Minions, Butt A Kissers anof Boot Lickers should be 1st order of his first day.
I, along with the majority of deputies and the citizens of Los Angeles County can’t wait.
A legitimate question to ask; who was the long time lieutenant and captain of Internal Affairs Bureau during the entire farce called Operation Pandora’s Box? What captain of IAB reported directly to disgraced former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka during his regime? What questionable orders did he give that IAB captain during his tenure as well as the entire chain of command of the Internal Affairs Division? 2 sergeants and 1 lieutenant from ICIB were just convicted of Obstruction of Justice and are heading to Federal prison.
Legitimate questions, no spin, no hype.
@ #37. You are right, that is a legitimate question to ask. However, there are many others that were aware of what was going on, and we all know it. The questions should start in one office on the 8th floor of TTCF. If that can is ever opened, it will be interesting to see the fallout.
Operations Pandora’s Box occurred in the summer of 2011. In December 2010, Tanaka moved in Gooden as the Captain of IAB (IAB Captain Mannis was promoted to Commander and left the Division)and moved in Gallager as the Ops Lieutenant. Later in mid-2011, Tanaka also performed a “coup” by removing and ICIB and IAB from Leadership & Training Division and made ICIB and IAB report directly to him. Therefore, Abner had no oversight of the two Bureaus. In early 2012, IAB was returned to Leadership & Training Division under Abner and Mannis transferred back to oversee IAB.
Just the Facts, that’s all great and dandy, but pray tell what on earth did these two stellar employees do in the interim, sit in a corner and suck their thumbs? There are many scandals involving IAB in particular that stretch back since the beginning of Baca’s administration, with Mannis and Abner at the helm. While the coup may conveniently excuse them from criminal culpability in the federal investigation, their sheer incompetence and corruption on so many other matters demands their resignation when the new administration is sworn in. These two were the chief enablers of Baca and Tanaka’s retaliation schemes against department whistleblowers.
When was the last time the freight elevators were cleaned, food is moved in them, along with laundry, gurney to move the sick or injured at MCJ? The last time I rode there was a dead rat caught in the gears
@Vickie- Was it a commander or deputy you saw caught in the gears? I’m curious. Boomer
It was you Boomer!