Gloria Molina Grills Sheriff Baca About Jail Abuse Reforms at Supes Meeting

Sheriff Lee Baca appeared before the LA County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning—at their request—to report on changes he has implemented (or will soon hopefully, maybe, implement) in order to curb the abuse of jail inmates by deputies that is subject of an ever-widening investigation by the FBI.

Some of the Supervisors, Mike Antonovich, and Gloria Molina, in particular, were not willing to accept the Sheriff’s reports and assurances at face value. But it was Molina who was the most aggressive questioner— well-briefed and able to follow right after Baca during the moments he attempted to vanish down a path of vagueness and equivocation.

Here are some highlights from exchanges that put Sheriff Baca in the hot seat:

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THE MUCH-PROMISED VIDEO CAMERAS

It seems that $157,530 worth of video cameras—69 of the things— that had been languishing in somebody’s office for more than a year had indeed finally been installed in some of the more violence prone areas of Men’s Central Jail, along with 17 additional cameras for the inmate reception area.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich acknowledged that this was a good thing.

However Antonovich was not at all thrilled to learn that 300 more cameras (recently purchased for $308,306.25), were not going to be installed for another five months.

ANTONOVICH

“….The board was very adamant that we want the cameras installed. We understand it may take a few weeks to do that, but five months is is really an extended period of time when the need for them was yesterday—not five months from today…”

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TIMELY USE OF FORCE INVESTIGATIONS

Molina pressed hard on a string of issues. For instance, she learned from the Sheriff and his team that the videos in the cameras were only set up to be stored for 30 days. after which time the images would vanish. So if a potentially problematic use of force incident occurred, what then? she asked—noting that, in past years, the LASD would be “lucky” to get an investigation finished within 30 days.

No problem, the sheriff and his team assured her. If an incident occurred, the recording would be marked, and then stored indefinitely.

It was less clear what would happen if a serious use of force incident was not reported right away, as has often been the case with inmates fearful of retaliation who wait until they are out of jail to report abuse. (This is precisely what occurred in the horrific case of Juan Pablo Reyes, a story that WitnessLA broke here.)

Molina pushed the Sheriff even harder on his plans to have a faster and more rigorous system of reviewing uses of force, since traditionally the investigations dragged so long that witnesses became hard to locate and accusations tough to prove.

Baca said that force incidents would be now be investigated within 30 to 45 days.

Then why was it, she asked, that “until recently…..they take anywhere from 90 days to two years on investigation?”

MOLINA

Sheriff, I’m really concerned. I’ve been through this investigative process before. And you’re telling me that you’re just putting on new timelines, but you’re not creating a new mechanism to really deliver anything in 30 to 45 days….?

No, there was a new mechanism, said the Sheriff, but he didn’t really explain it.

BACA:

Supervisor, we believe we can meet the deadlines of 30 days. I don’t know if I can say it any clearer than that.

Molina countered that she didn’t know of one investigation that had “been delivered in 30 days in the last five years.”

MOLINA

Do you know one that’s been delivered in 30 days?

Baca phumphered something about some cases taking longer.

“So nothing is changed with regard to that. So you’re telling me….”

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THE SLIPPERY ISSUE OF SHIFT ROTATIONS

Molina was also impatient when Baca sounded less than firm on the issue of implementing the shift rotations for deputies working custody duty that were in order to break up the now notorious deputy gangs inside Men’s Central Jail. This was a strategy long recommended both by Mike Gennaco at the Office of Independent Review and Special Counsel Merrick Bobb, among others.

(WitnessLA’s Matt Fleischer reported two months ago that is was this very reform strategy that the then-commanding officer of Men’s Central Jail tried to implement in 2006 only to have his efforts undone by then Assistant Sheriff, now Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who is Baca’s second in command.)

If the Sheriff was committed to the shift rotation strategy, when did he think it would be in place? Molina asked.

Baca didn’t have anything close to a definitive answer. It would require more meetings and discussions it seemed.

After several more go rounds, Molina sensed she had reached the point of diminishing returns.

MOLINA

I think we’re going to be having this conversation every couple of months because, very frankly, Sheriff, we’re at a point where we say these things, we bring in people to give these recommendations,….and it’s one thing for you to say, “Oh, yes, I accept all these recommendations. But unfortunately, we’re being told now that many of those recommendations were not were not implemented. So I’m sorry to be so….

BACA:

Suspicious.

MOLINA:

Yes, suspicious and skeptical whether they’re going to be implemented. Yes.

Make that two of us.

PS: All throughout the Baca/Molina exchange, I was getting texts from one of my LASD informants who was positively cheering Gloria Molina on, as were many of his reform-minded department friends, he told me later.

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Photo by Chad Buchanan/Getty Images