Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas has nominated Reverend Cecil “Chip” Murray, the iconic retired long-time pastor of the First AME Church, as his choice for the County’s newly-formed Citizens Commission on Jail Violence in the hope that Rev. Murray’s presence will add an unassailable kind of moral weight to the group that already consists of three august ex-judges and one highly-regarded veteran police chief.
“After the 1992 riots, Reverend Murray, then pastor of First AME Church in South Los Angeles, became the pre-eminent moral force in the local and national conversation about the relationship of minority communities to the law enforcement structure,” Ridley-Thomas said in his statement about the nomination.
“I believe the commission must engage the broader public – not just the law enforcement community – in a moral conversation, and few are as well suited to do this task as Cecil L. Murray.”
When I spoke to the Supervisor privately over the weekend about his choice, I told him that I worried the commission presently leaned too heavily toward august figures, with not enough hard-chargers. He said he understood my concerns but felt that Rev. Murray, at this point in his life, would have no trouble pushing hard, and then some.
“He is aware of the rights of the incarcerated having pastored to their families for 30 years,” said Ridley-Thomas. “He has also an extensive prison ministry. And he’s been a leader in civil rights.”
““For the commission’s findings to be taken seriously, he added, “they will have to bring to bear significant standing. Chip Murray can do that.”
The five commission members just nominated will choose two more members to join them, bringing the number to seven. They will make their selections from a pool of names submitted by the Board of Supes.
Ridley-Thomas rattled off to me some of his additions to the pool of names, which included people like former Santa Monica Police Chief James Butts, who is now the mayor of Inglewood, Joe Dunn, who is the executive Director of the California State Bar, Maria Escutia of the United Farm Workers, Bishop Grant Hagiya, retired judge Candice Cooper, Gary Williams, who holds the Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Chair in Civil Rights at Loyola Law School, or John Slaughter, now at USC who also served on the Christopher Commission (which was convened to help reform the LAPD after the Rodney King verdict and the subsequent riots).
Whoever the final two are, will the commission be able to make a difference?
As LA Times Jim Newton noted in an Op Ed on Monday, in that Sheriff Baca is an elected official—and a very popular one at that—it may be too easy for him and his command staff to make a few changes and shrug off any suggestions that would require fundamental reform.
Indeed, department insiders I have been speaking with repeatedly expressed worry that some sacrificial lambs will be tossed under the bus (please ignore the horrible mixed metaphor), a few superficial reforms will be instituted, but that the considerable dysfunction within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that has allowed a culture of abuse to flourish inside the County’s jails will remain intact.
NOTE: Be sure to read the LA Times’ Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard’s Sunday report about how two inexperienced deputies were assigned to guard some of the toughest inmates, and racked up some of the highest numbers of use-of-force incidents in Men’s Central Jail.
Sheriff Baca is popular among voters but it’s way past the time for a popularity contest. Who’s a strong candidate to challenge Baca in the next election?
I couldn’t agree more Donna. Unfortunately, their is no strong candidate right now that seems to want to join the fray.
Baca has a huge war chest. He is in campaign mode ALL the time. THAT’S why he has no idea what’s going on in his own department. He leaves the day to day operations of the department to his underlings while he’s out hobnobbing with campaign donors.