Valley Forum: Give Sheriff watchdog agency back its bite

Sonoma County has a long history of “problems” with law enforcement agencies going at least back 20-years or so. For example, this quote from a Press Democrat story from 2014: “In 2000, a U.S. Civil Rights Commission advisory committee recommended Sonoma County, Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park implement citizen review boards, noting the grand jury’s lack of financial independence and organizational separation from local law enforcement.”

In point of fact there have been problems with the Sheriff’s Department and cities in Sonoma County with law enforcement agencies – inordinate number of deaths of people held in custody, fatalities during arrests by police or Sheriff’s deputies – and recommendations by federal civil rights commissions and grand juries for independent citizen review bodies at the county level.

Prompted by the Andy Lopez fatal shooting by Deputy Gelhaus a few years back, a citizen’s police review board – the Independent Office of Law Enforcment Review and Outreach, or IOLERO - was finally established after decades of expressed concern by county residents. And still and very recently there have been fatal incidents, killings of people by county law enforcement, and so it appears that police oversight, independent investigation and accountability are more in need than ever.

But now it also appears that the agency created to do this oversight work, referred to in bureaucratize as “auditors,” is being manipulated to become a toothless, compliant, and subservient tool of the Sheriff’s Office. You may think this is hyperbole, but with even the most basic awareness of police/civilian relationships here and elsewhere, it’s a common problem of major proportions and everyone knows that.

The prior head of the oversight agency was fought at every turn by the Sheriff’s Office until he resigned in utter frustration and resistance to do his job. We, the public, know this. His current replacement seems hell bent to render the agency she’s supposed to lead and champion into one of no consequence and in service to the law enforcement agency she’s supposed to be watchdogging.

Is this your objective, Board of Supervisors, as well? Are you going to relinquish your promise and duty to the people of Sonoma to hold police accountable for their actions and free of independent investigation by outside agencies? Are you so politically intimidated by the Sheriff and the District Attorney that you will not stand up for the people who’ve elected you? Will you show some grit in this matter and honor what you set out to do just a few years ago in the name of a child who was killed - shot eight times - for carrying a toy gun?

This is bigger than Sonoma County. This is a national issue. Be the leaders you were elected to be.

Will Shonbrun is a longtime Sonoma Valley resident and activist.