A Rush to Save San Diego’s Deathatorium
Choosing the “same old, same old” as your only option for sheriff ten months ahead of a primary sends a very wrong message.
More than 150 people have died in this place since 2009. Some of them may have died of natural causes, many of them did not. Every investigation into these deaths has found no one to be culpable. And San Diego’s taxpayers are footing the bill.
Welcome to the San Diego County jail system, operated by elected County Sheriff Bill Gore, who has announced that he’s not running for re-election in 2022.
Monday’s Union-Tribune chronicles the investigation into the death by suicide of prisoner Joseph Morton:
At booking, he told officials he had tried to take his own life and made no secret of his plan to try again.
Less than a week later, on May 17, 2020, San Diego County sheriff’s deputies found Morton inside his cell with a blanket wrapped around his neck and tied to the bunk above his. Deputies tried to save Morton but he was pronounced dead a short time later.
According to the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, which conducts independent investigations into jail deaths and misconduct allegations against sheriff’s deputies and county probation officers, no one under its jurisdiction was found to have done anything wrong.
Nobody did anything wrong. That’s because the one vehicle for evidence, namely the video cameras inside the Vista Detention Facility, were inoperable.
Also, the jail’s medical staff apparently answers to nobody, since the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board was unable to obtain their records because their investigations are limited to allegations against sheriff’s deputies and county probation officers.
Mind you, journalists' investigations about jail deaths date back to 2013, when Kelly Davis and Dave Maass released a 5-part investigative series in the now-defunct San Diego CityBeat. Davis has contributed to articles published in the Voice of San Diego and the Union-Tribune as recently as --checks notes-- Monday.
The U-T published “Dying Behind Bars in 2019,” an in-depth, six-month investigation that found the mortality rate in San Diego jails was the highest among large counties in the state.
The point here is that the death rate in local jails is no surprise. Promises have been made in response to negative news accounts, but the fatalities continue. So far in 2021 there have been seven deaths.
Given that Bill Gore done little more than paper over jail deaths, and the 73 lawsuits and claims (including traffic accidents) involving the Sheriff's Department resolved through May 31, 2021 for $14,279,315.91, you’d think a change in leadership might be order.
But you’d be wrong. Undersheriff Kelly Martinez has announced plans to run for the seat. She has worked for the Sheriff’s Department for 36 years, and was immediately endorsed by the man she’s replacing.
From the Union-Tribune:
Martinez filed papers stating she intended to run with the county Registrar of Voters on July 27, two days before Gore announced he would not seek re-election. The primary election is in June.
This is the first time she has run for public office.
Her campaign website includes endorsements from Gore, who is a registered Republican, and many prominent Democratic political leaders, including three county supervisors — Nathan Fletcher, Nora Vargas and Terra Lawson-Remer — San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, and Rep. Juan Vargas. The sheriff’s race is non-partisan.
So are we to imply from these out-of-the-gate endorsements that the status quo with the sheriff’s department is okay with all these politicians? The County Supervisors have oversight of the Sheriff’s Department because they have to approve its budget.
Now-retired Sheriff’s Commander Dave Myers ran against Bill Gore in the 2018 election. If elected, Myers would have been the first openly gay San Diego County Sheriff. He also advocated for reforms like prohibiting the shackling of pregnant inmates while they give birth and shifting the focus to rehabilitation instead of incarceration for misdemeanors and low level drug offenses.
Myers has made his intention to run for the post again in recent months. Since retiring, he has been active in supporting efforts at reforming law enforcement and judicial practices. And apparently he’s ruffled more than a few feathers along the way.
From Voice of San Diego:
Almost none of the Democrats who announced their support for Martinez wanted to talk about their endorsement for an important public safety position. But one of them did, and his reasoning might provide a window into what motivated the quick decision: They’re worried about another likely candidate.
Vargas told me that he thinks Martinez would make a good sheriff, but said his endorsement was largely motivated by a desire to ensure Dave Myers, who spent more than 30 years with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, doesn’t get the job. Myers ran unsuccessfully against Gore in 2018 but has not yet formally announced a run – he said he’d make an announcement in the coming weeks.
“I think he’s unhinged,” Vargas said of Myers. During our conversation, Vargas also referred to Myers as “an idiot” and “a total nut case.” “That’s the last thing we need in one of these very important positions. I think everyone that knows him well disrespects him. I think he’d be a disaster. I think he would be awful for my community,” Vargas said.
I reached out to Myers --who I endorsed in 2018-- for a comment on this and his response was that politicians were “afraid of change.”
Maybe he’s not the guy needed for the job at his time. But I have to question the wisdom of opting for more of the same from a government entity notorious for its opacity and apparent lack of oversight in handling the human beings placed in its charge.
***
Here’s another story about the Sheriff’s office reflecting on its management...
Shades of Reefer Madness, the 1936 film at the root of most of the misinformation about marijuana used to justify its prohibition.
News outlets nationwide are quoting medical officials doubting the narrative of a dramatic video posted by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department showing a trainee collapsing while investigating suspected fentanyl.
What’s hinky about the video is that fentanyl isn’t easily absorbed through casual contact. The development of patches enabling absorption through the skin took years, simply because it doesn’t easily work that way. Experts agree overdose from secondhand contact would be extremely difficult.
From the New York Times:
The Sheriff’s Department said a full report on what was found in the car would not be available until Monday. In the body camera footage, one of the men can be overheard saying that the substance “tested positive for fentanyl.”
The Sheriff’s Department said Deputy Faiivae and Corporal Crane were each on vacation; neither could be reached on Saturday.
A report about the risks of incidental exposure to fentanyl found that the police and other authorities, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, have published false information about how fentanyl can become present in the body as well as what leads to an overdose, promoting the notion that a small amount of fentanyl absorbed through the skin can be fatal.
It’s unclear whether the SDSO video was intended as a cautionary tale about fentanyl, which is a serious problem, or as a public relations feel good story for what the department does, or both.
The point here is that somebody screwed up.
Late Monday evening, the Sheriff's office responded to the criticism. The decision to call what happened an overdose wasn't made or verified by a medical professional.
Via the Union-Tribune:
Gore said Monday he was surprised that medical professionals had contended that the risk to law enforcement in handling and inhaling fentanyl was overblown.
“I’m sorry, my mind didn’t go to, oh our deputy fainted, our deputy had a panic attack. It just didn’t go there. What was the other logical explanation— to my mind it was an overdose from the drug, from fentanyl.”
***
Fixing the accountability problem in San Diego isn’t easy. Elected Sheriffs are in place because the California constitution says they need to be. Forty four states also elect sheriffs in some fashion; it’s a tradition going back to 1651, when colonists in Virginia first chose a sheriff.
The idea behind electing sheriffs is akin to civilian control over the military; i.e., limiting the power of politicians. The reality is that they’re essentially given little fiefdoms.
Here’s veteran political reporter Joe Mathews:
Once elected, sheriffs in all 58 counties have power over jails and policing, and act pretty much as they please. When sheriffs do wrong, there is little that Californians can do to stop them. Under our state’s structure, a sheriff in California can’t really be fired. And those most liable to complain about a sheriff—inmates and those accused of crimes—have trouble gaining the public’s ear, let alone its sympathy.
You can see this absence of accountability in more than just the public swagger of so many sheriffs. In the Trump era, some sheriffs, especially in more conservative precincts, have flirted with anti-California treason, cozying up to the California-hating president by defying state laws designed to protect our immigrant families from federal abuses.
“The power of sheriffs,” historian Andrew Isenberg has written, “is inextricably tied up in the concept of a popular justice that is not bound by anything so mundane as the law.”
A bill (SB 271) allowing non-police civilians to be elected as sheriffs died in committee earlier his year.
The concept of electing a law enforcement official may seem like a good idea, but in practice --at least in San Diego-- it hasn’t led to accountability. San Diego’s Sheriff knows where the “political bodies are buried” and Deputies working for the office have functioned as a powerful force in local politics.
Those tacky signs affixed on construction sites and chain link fences for candidates in election years are just one expression of the “volunteer” efforts of the San Diego Deputy Sheriffs Association. Law enforcement rank and file associations around the state support each other in political contests, which is why you’ll see endorsements and donations from LA for San Diego candidates.
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The contests for elected law enforcement positions in San Diego (County DA Summer Stephan just announced a reelection bid) should be looked at in the context of the larger movements for criminal justice reforms and opposing racism in this country.
Over the past few election cycles, progressive reformers have been elected as District Attorney in Milwaukee, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Their efforts have been met with resistance from police unions, conservative politicians, and judges.
The most common charge in all this pushback is some variation on the theme that billionaire George Soros is behind a plot to put criminals on the streets. Soros is the central figure in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories spread by authoritarians throughout the world. His name was invoked locally in ads opposing Genevieve Jones-Wright’s campaign for district attorney.
Given that (mostly unproven) accusations about a crime wave sweeping the country is a central theme for Republicans headed into the midterm elections, I can see why some politicians might not want to rock the boat in law enforcement related electoral contests.
But they’re wrong.
The “war” on crime/drugs/whatever has never been about anything other than incarcerating people of color. Certainly drug use didn’t go down. Try as they might, the anti-reformers have been unable to make a provable connection between depopulating prisons and crime rates. (It certainly seems like the current spike in murders might have something to do with record gun sales, but God-forbid anybody offends the NRA.)
The struggle for a more just and equitable society is meeting resistance on multiple levels, whether it’s the imaginary curricula based on Critical Race Theory or bringing back the drug war. Choosing the “same old, same old” as your only option for sheriff ten months ahead of a primary sends a very wrong message.
https://twitter.com/Tshombe77/status/1424505749200248834?s=20
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