Diana Teran worked for years to root out misconduct in the LA Sheriff’s Department, but now she faces charges from the state AG related to that work. Critics worry it could chill local efforts to ‘police the police.’
Then-Sheriff Lee Baca defended OIR’s right to do its work, but he also elevated a second-in-command, Paul Tanaka, who belonged to one of the deputy gangs that wreaked havoc in the county jails. After an informant scandal erupted that would eventually send both men to federal prison, Jim McDonnell was elected as sheriff in 2014. As former chief of the Long Beach Police Department, McDonnell was a relative outsider to LASD. But he campaigned on a promise to clean house, and entered with a mandate for reform. (McDonnell, who is now the chief of LAPD, elected not to respond to a request for comment.)
I recommend the following site on the matter of sheriffs with too much power and not enough checks and balances:
I recommend the following site on the matter of sheriffs with too much power and not enough checks and balances:
https://sheriffs.substack.com/
And the podcast series A Tradition of Violence re: sheriff gangs.