EDITOR’S NOTE: I’d known from chatting with KPPC’s Frank Stoltze at this or that event that he’d been working on a profile of Sheriff Lee Baca for a while. Thus when the wide-ranging, intriguing, contradiction-filled and surprisingly poignant two-part profile of Baca ran on successive Madeleine Brand shows last week, along with an accompanying article, I wondered what Frank thought, now that the project was completed.
With this in mind, I asked WitnessLA’s newest reporter, David Lynn, to talk with Stoltze about the interview/profile process—a sort of story-behind-the-story—which you’ll find below.
(We’ll introduce WitnessLA staff additions, David Lynn and Taylor Walker, more properly in the coming days.)
But first, be sure to listen to—and read—the two-part profile (which you can find here). It’s an unusually good reminder about why so many LA people are so very conflicted about the complicated man who is Los Angeles County’s sheriff.
(And please don’t miss the stand-alone sound clips embedded in the text. The clip of Baca talking about his undocumented mother is, by itself, worth the price of admission.)
THE ART OF PROFILING SHERIFF LEE BACA
by David Lynn
Reporter Frank Stoltze covers anything criminal justice-related for Southern California Public Radio Station 89.3 KPCC. When researching his recent profile of the Los Angeles’ County Sheriff Department’s top cop, Stoltze rode along with Sheriff Lee Baca for the better part of a day in order to give Angelenos some insight into a man who, at least indirectly, plays a large role in their lives.
Baca’s LASD has its share of troubles right now-–an ever-widening FBI investigation, a huge, class action lawsuit from the ACLU, a citizens commission appointed to examine the problems in its jails, and now an audit by the county’s auditor-controller into alleged multimillion dollar irregularities in one of the department’s aircraft contracts. Given the controversies, we wanted to know the challenges Mr. Stoltze faced in reporting on the sheriff.
Stoltze said that he wanted to do this story on Baca because, despite his high profile and the recent scandals, the sheriff doesn’t get the amount of press one would expect.
“With the Sheriff under fire, the LAPD still gets more attention. It was a story that was long overdue. Often, even when he’s up for re-election, there’s not much coverage,” Stoltze said.
With all of the problems surrounding the LASD, it’s a tricky time for the Sheriff to be doing interviews. Stoltze made several requests over many weeks before he was finally granted access to Baca in the form of a six-hour ride-a-long.
“We started at an event he was doing for kids at a school. Then he had his driver take us through his old neighborhood. He wanted to humanize himself. He was sitting in the front passenger seat and I was in the back seat with a shotgun microphone attached to my recorder, asking questions,” said Stoltze.
In reading and listening to Stoltze’s profile of Baca one is struck by a sense of paradox surrounding the sheriff who comes across personally as a reasonable and caring man. Yet he is, after all, at the helm of an organization that is under scrutiny for being brutal and corrupt.
“What I tried to do in this piece is to show how, on one hand, you have this thoughtful intellectual who professes deep humanity and caring for the less fortunate, and on the other he has allowed brutality in the jails to the extent that it caught the attention of the FBI,” Stoltze said.
Interestingly, one of the difficulties Stoltze faced in putting the profile together was finding critics of the Sheriff.
“I talked to people like [LASD civilian watchdog Merrick] Bobb and Connie Rice. Bobb may know the Sheriff’s Department better than the Sheriff. He’s been watching them since 1992. Rice is a long time civil rights attorney and sheriff supporter. But groups like ALADS (the LASD union) refused to do an interview,” said Stoltze.
Even some of those who agreed to comment on the Sheriff seemed to have mixed feelings about having their personal thoughts on the record, says Stoltze.
“He’s a powerful politician and people want to be on the right side of him, but I also get the feeling that they are genuinely conflicted. They’ll be critical of him in reports, but when interviewed they’re not as harsh. The same people who grill him at a Board of Supervisors meeting try not to be too hard on him in interviews,” said Stoltze.
When asked why this attitude of critical reverence towards Sheriff Baca is so prevalent., Stoltze offered some insight.
“Some people thought Darryl Gates was a disaster. Even with all the trouble in the Sheriff’s Department, you don’t hear the same concern about Baca. He’s an intellectual guy who talks about progressive principles, transparency and accountability,” Stoltze said.
So how transparent did Stoltze believe the sheriff was during the interview?
“He was very forthcoming,” Stoltze says of Baca. “The only thing that he seemed particularly reluctant to talk about was his challenging Sherman Block for the office.”
The sheriff was also very forthcoming with his feelings towards the media. Stoltze said the Sheriff took a couple of shots at the media, one of which was directed at Stoltze himself.
“I was asking a series of tougher questions about the jails and politics when he asked, ‘Did someone put you up to these? I thought you were a nice guy.’ I just said, ‘Well, you know how ornery I can get,’” said Stoltze.
Some details of the interview were left out of the finished profile, for editing reasons one of which was Stoltze giving Sheriff Baca some good-natured ribbing over his relatively light security detail.
“The LAPD chief always has a few uniformed guys with him. Baca only has his driver and he’s in plain clothes,” said Stoltze. “Baca doesn’t even carry a gun. I said, ‘You never carry a gun!’ Baca said, ‘No, no, I have a gun. I also have my Sam Browne [police gun belt] and 9mm in the trunk.’”
The pre-fiddled-with photo of Sheriff Baca by Grant Slater/KPPC
[…] The art of profiling Sheriff Lee Baca for KPCC, as Frank Stoltze did. Witness LA […]
Baca is on another planet, always has been. Go to EPC with the expectation of discussing budget issues and end up listening to him pontificate for three hours about 7-11 Stores, American Indian discrimination and the need to reach out to the China for support with gangs. We sit back, trying to be polite and say to ourselves, “What in the F is he smoking today?” Someone would try and refocus him back towards the agenda topic and out of no where, he would say, “I want to build a facility where female inmates can raise their children, I don’t care what it costs, let get it done for the benefit of society.” He would walk out and not be seen again for weeks and when he did return, he was wearing a toga.
And he is the Sheriff and this is why LASD is in the mess that it is in today and why dysfunction runs ramped. And the sad thing, Frank Stoltze caught up with Baca on a good day. The story shows how this man is all over the map. He does not manage the department, he allows Tanaka to do so, unchecked.
It’s too bad Frank Stoltze didn’t accompany Baca to a recent meeting with the volunteer posse, where he allegedly told the group he could communicate telepathically with horses(?). I’ve also heard of his famous dust particle speech, and needless to say, there are issues here considering the position he holds.
After decades of neglecting the conditions of the jails, and ignoring repeatedly the advice of his own staff, he now turns to the expert Dr. Austin to tell him what everyone has known for years. Jail should be for those who pose a threat to society, period. We do not have the resources to use the clumsy threat of incarceration to modify adult behavior of all sorts, therefor we need to pick and chose that which poses a threat to our safety.
In the meantime, all I hear are crickets coming from the bloggers who were very busy trying to cast dispersions on the Aero Bureau supervisors who stepped up to the plate and did something about rampant corruption.
Likewise, where are the defenders of the practice of hiring Jeff Donahue’s wife to “audit” DLI classes? At what cost to the taxpayer did this occur, and why? Did a crime occur in this process? The taxpayers want answers.
The list keeps getting bigger and bigger: first it was Vignali, then badges for campaign contributions, then the POST academy scandal, then Delijani and Graciano, the jail meltdown courtesy of Tanaka and his incompetence, the hiring scandal that is now bearing fruit in record arrests of deputies, then the missing $11 million from Aero Bureau, Capt Donahue’s golfing coach, and who knows what else.
Sheriff Baca has perfected the art of using big words to impress people, and then throwing the term “humanism” to make him sound nice, even when it does not apply.
The dynamic duo’s days are numbered, along with all of their unethical, “all about me” minions who do their bidding. I would encourage all of you to do the honorable thing and retire quietly. The alternative is to face a grand jury with questions that you wish you didn’t have the answers for…
Somebody (Tanaka) has to run the dept. while Leroy is busy being a horse whisperer and wannabe social worker. If I had a dollar for every time a staff member rolled their eyes or asked one another (outside of Leroy’s presence of course: “Could you believe that bullshit” I could buy a condo in Maui.
Of course they’re talking about how he goes space cadet at any given time and goes off on one of his way out philosophies that has absolutely nothing to do with running the dept.
I suppose that the rest of us are just too stupid to get it.
Maybe one of these days being so “progressive, humanistic and intellectual” won’t be enough to keep him out of the grease with the media and he’ll be held accountable for doing (or not doing) what he was elected to do and what he is paid to do. Run the sheriff’s dept.
Maybe his legacy will be that he was the most caring, smartest and progressive sheriff that couldn’t run the department worth a damn.
Time will tell.
This bog is getting boring…Where are the Tanaka donor lists. zzzzzzz
Looks like the media is finally waking up from the “sheriff moonbeam” fantasy. While old “moonbeam” endlessly droned on with his pointless liberal retoric, the department was taken over by some pretty bad actors. Guess it was getting harder to ignore reality with the weekly scandals, law suits, and good old fashioned brutality going on right in front of the ACLU. Baca is exposed for what he really is, a third rate political hack, and a wanna be celebrity. He and his buddy with the major little man complex have been on the mother of all ego trips. Hopefully we can get rid of this clown so he can be free to pursue his real destiny … Like apperaing on dancing with the stars… Or celeberity apprentice..
@ Big Secret….. I’ve heard a number of people attempt to explain how Baca is a loon, but your comment is THE BEST one yet. It says it all, your comment on his “legacy” is spot on as well. Horse Whisperer…… LOLOLOLOLOL It has been reported Baca is on heavy psychotropic medication. I think he sometimes forgets to take his meds. Pill Call on the 4th floor, line up, shoulder on the wall, hands in your pocket, no talking.
I thought the story painted the picture that Baca was a good person who cared about people. Sounds like most of this blog is from disgruntled employees. As a leader, what is wrong with having a vision? Maybe Baca would be more effective if his employees worked with him instead of blogging about how they dont agree with him JMHO
Re: Goodness bad? There is nothing wrong with a leader having a vision, but it should be grounded in reality, achievable, and not generated by smoking illegal substances.
Baca would be more effective if he actually LISTENED to his employees, but we are way past that time. Funny you mentioned disgruntled, which has become the new fig leaf for corrupt administrations.
If Baca truly cared about people, he would own up to his mistakes and rectify them. Unfortunately, he is incapable of recognizing his errors, big or small.
It’s time for him and his apologists to retire.
We all know that Sheriff Baca has a problem that an individual only alluded to. It is the same problem that a previous undersheriff had, and while I am sympathetic, it is time for the sheriff to retire while he still can.
The problem is nobody ever tells Lee he’s wrong. Nobody has the spine to stand up to him for fear of pissing him off. So all he ever gets told is that he is right and what great ideas he has. Then when he is not around they laugh and shake their heads at his “great ideas”.
One of the most telling things that WLA has uncovered is that Tanaka stated that Lee has to be “handled”. That right there says it all. Think about that. Let that soak in.
Handled? Why? If Lee IS so damn intelligent how does he not realize he’s being handled and put a stop to it?
He can’t deny it’s happened. His own Undersheriff admits to doing it.
He didn’t do himself any favors by surrounding himself with yes men. We don’t need our friends/colleagues when we’re right. We need them when we’re wrong. We need them to tell us when we’re going off track.
Nobody is perfect. Nobody’s ideas are 100% correct. When you hold such a powerful position, and all you’re ever told is how you’re right, you develop a sense of entitlement and invulnerability.
Ask any psychologist who deals with powerful celebrities or athletes who end up in trouble and then end up asking themselves “How the hell did this happen?”
‘Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his. ~Benjamin Franklin
True friends stab you in the front. ~Oscar Wilde
Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty. ~Sicilian Proverb
You should have requested a ride-along sight seeing excursion to point out the best happy endings business facilities in Los Angeles County. You could have been certified as a court expert for future testimonial hearings.
Stolze went on a pre planned tour of the Sheriff’s favorite things to do, then asked him some pretty generic questions. He got to hear the Sheriff’s version of how he runs the Department and doesn’t really dig into details. I really didn’t see any questions about Abrams, Duran, the 3000 boys, or Tanaka’s apparent pay to play scheme.
Nice staging on the Sheriff’s part – rolling through his old neighborhood, getting emotional about his upbringing, and telling a deputy to fix a toilet (which was likely reported about a month ago to Facilities, but ignored because funding is going “elsewhere”, much like the long awaited camera system in MCJ).
Stolze touched on outside critics, but again, stayed pretty shallow. Transparency? About the same as the Obama Administration. Lots of pretty words, not many decent actions. Lots of window dressing, not a lot of substance.
Stolze, unless you are using this interview as a base to check facts against, I think you got snowed.
This department is a mess! Leroy wake up before the Feds run you out of town! Listen to your employees!
Who is the common thread…? When will the Sheriff be the LEADER he preaches about and forces his employees to believe in and get rid of the Dept’s biggest problem, PAUL TANAKA. Do that and show your employees and the citizens of this county that you truly care about them and this Dept. BE A LEADER LEE…..You demand it of your employees, demand it of yourself.