The election this past November of a new district attorney and sheriff creates an opportunity for improved relations between law enforcement and the community. The following is an excerpt of an interview with Tony Craver, newly elected Sheriff of Mendocino County. The interview appears in its entirety on our website at I had never given any serious consideration to being sheriff. I was really happy with what I was doing. When Jim (Tuso, former sheriff) announced he was not running for re-election, I started getting a lot of phone calls. My first response was, oh no, but after a period of time I started thinking about it, maybe I could have some positive impact on the Sheriff's Department and the relationship it has with the community. So that's what motivated me„a desire to make a positive change.
You've been in office almost two and a half months now. Are there any aspects of being sheriff that you didn't expect?
Yes. It's very frustrating dealing with the bureaucracy of government itself. I'm working on learning the ropes right now. There's need for a lot of change. If you try to change too much, too fast, people resist. People basically don't like change, so we have to make it gradually.
The variety of people I deal with. It's public service and that's what I'm here for. I have the direct link to people who have specific problems, and that is very gratifying.
My top priorities in the department are staffing with a stable work force, getting the right people to do the right jobs. It's controlled obviously by the budget parameters.
I believe expectations of the public are that when they call for services, they want somebody who is going to show an interest in their problems, somebody who cares, someone who treats them with courtesy, with respect and dignity. People want to see honesty in the performance of the deputies. My personal goal is to fullfil those expectations.
There've only been two or three complaints brought to my attention since I've been in office. We get right back to them just like I said I'd do. There's a lot of disbelief, a lot of distrust in law enforcement, but I don't think a citizens review board is going to change that a lot. There are people who simply don't trust us, and regardless of our review mechanisms, if the outcome is not what they expect it to be, they're going to cry foul.
Setting up a citizens review board, from what I understand, is a very time consuming, very costly, serious undertaking. They have to be from a broad variety of the community, they have to be willing to serve, just like with the grand jury. They have to be trained, there has to be some sort of paid staff.
If it comes to the point that I feel it's going to be necessary for us to have citizen review, I would find a model that seems to be working. There's no sense going through the motions just to placate people.
The public doesn't get paid„you as a citizen on the street who maybe has been stopped for a driving violation or we're out to your house because you've been burglarized or having a dispute with your neighbor or something like that„nobody is paying you to have a good attitude, but people do have an expectation that the police officer is there to serve them and that he should have a service attitude. I really subscribe to that theory. We just need to continually reinforce that down the chain of command.
Very close. [District Attorney] Norm Vroman and I are working on this together. Essentially we've got our idea for a basic, straight forward policy. A person who is qualified to possess or grow marijuana under Prop 215 will be able to come to us with certain documentation, and we in turn will issue an identification card. Hopefully it will be honored by all law enforcement in Mendocino County. I can only say it will be honored by the Sheriff's Office, I can't speak for the Police Departments or the Highway Patrol. We'd handle it the same way as any prescription drug in your pocket.
Well, I don't know. I'm kind of optimistic. I think Bill Lockyer and Grey Davis have a different attitude toward the marijuana situation then their predecessors did. I think the feds are starting to soften up a little bit. Since California passed 215 I believe six more states have passed similar laws, so I think as more election cycles come around you'll see more and more states passing these laws.
Reasonableness is the main thing. I want to make certain that our internal policy at the Sheriff's Office is to err in favor of the person with the card. If we go out and find somebody with 40 seedlings, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that 10 adult plants could come from that. I would be very angry if I'd issued an ID card to somebody and they got busted for 40 seedlings. By the same token if they have 40 that were 10 feet tall really bushy plants, and they said they were just getting around to thinning out 30, I might have a hard time buying into that scenario. We have to be reasonable. I think the consumers, the patients have to be reasonable as well.
Yes, absolutely. We have an obligation to enforce the law. I'm very much in favor of seeing the law change, but I'm not in favor of ignoring the law. Although marijuana enforcement is a very low priority, we do have to have a mechanism in place to deal with large, commercial growers. I do expect the officers„if they're going out in helicopters and dress up in what people think of as battle garb„not invade the privacy of small time growers, the folks who have a few plants in their back yard, people who are growing for recreational purposes, for medicinal purposes. I want our guys to be out there looking for the large commercial growers.
I've been asked if the county would be better off with the officers assigned to other things. The answer is yes, but the grant is for the marijuana, and if the grant went away, we wouldn't have anybody there. In terms of trespass growers, I don't want to hear them whining that we ripped up their plants, because that's what we're looking for, that's being grown on someone else's property, and on public land.
I've got 47 funded positions in this department. If we didn't have to worry about domestic violence, burglaries, vandalism and all the other, believe me, everything we did, every officer would be focused strictly on meth, because it is a very dangerous situation.
Right now we have 2 officers on the task force. The other officers generally are making contact with people who are either in possession or under the influence of meth through traffic enforcement. I'm not really in favor of deputies stopping you for a broken taillight or a cracked windshield, and then developing that into a meth arrest, but they are effectively doing so, so it's a dilemma.
Well, that's where the task force comes in. Their primary focus is on the manufacture of meth. Officers catch someone driving with several grams of meth in their pocket. Every now and again one of them is going to give up who they got it from. It's kind of a trickle down effect.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that we've got this, what do they call it...Oh! the Constitution of the United States. People have constitutional rights to privacy, constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Before I can arrest you, I have to have probable cause, proof, etc. We can't generally get a search warrant based on common knowledge. Often it would require we go into a neighborhood and set up a surveillance. We have to build probable cause.
The deputies generally believe that anybody who is arrested and jailed is guilty. They're going to maintain the attitude that there is a presumption of innocence and so on, but we know in our hearts that we haven't manufactured evidence. We believe in our fellow officers. Especially when we have a history with them. So we think, if so and so says this is what happened, than that's what happened, I believe him.
Getting back to the Bear Lincoln case, I really don't know the whole story. But I think the general feeling among the deputies was that Bear Lincoln was guilty. Just like the general feeling among certain segments of the population who never even heard one syllable from us, that he was totally innocent. I think it's kind of human nature for it to be that way.
I can't say that out of or sixty or seventy guys in the department, there isn't one person who harbors prejudice against all Indians because of what happened to Bob Davis. But if there is that feeling, it's very, very isolated. I don't think anybody would hold what Bear Lincoln is alleged to have done against the entire segment of the community.
I have no personal hatred for anybody who commits a crime. There are many reasons why people do the things they do. Most of the guys who are working in the North sector now weren't even there when Bob Davis was there. There's been a big turnover.
There are always complaints about the jail, and many of them come from people who are in there.
I know there are a lot of people in the community who feel the medical services provided in the jail are totally inadequate. I've had people tell me that since these services are provided by an independent contractor, the incentive for high profits drives a lack of service and is responsible for the low quality. On the other hand people telling me that the California Department of Corrections (DOC) do their evaluation and review, and say we're right on track, we're doing a good job.
That's right, but that doesn't have anything to do with California Forensic Medical Group (CFMG). I was speaking of CFMG. I agree with you, but staffing is a whole other area. The DOC says we're about 20% shy of the staffing we should have. They recommend 54.5, and we're allocated at 44. That's a very serious consideration. There's just too many things to do and not enough people to do it. I would love to see money for a mental health pod, like Sonoma County's.
How can I deal with it as a sheriff or how can we deal with it as a society? It's two separate things. As sheriff I can only deal with the hand I'm dealt. That is that people who happen to be mentally ill commit criminal offenses and we have to take appropriate action. We don't have enough people to deal with the criminal problems that we have, let alone branching out and adding provision of mental health treatment services to people on the street. That should be a function of the Mental Health Department.
I have a real serious personal problem with paying CFMG to provide mental health services in the jail, when a block down the street we have a County Mental Health Department. Maybe they're not providing the same services, and maybe I'm way out of line on this. But in terms of those clinical services that a person needs to maintain normalcy„whatever that is„so that they don't become criminals because of their mental impairment, those things are not happening.
If the offender is given a choice between 30 days in the county jail or going on a two year intensive case management program, some of them may say I don't want to mess with that, I don't want that interference in my life. I think our statistics show that 8% of the jail population is mentally ill.
This issue is very difficult to answer because the question is, what can we expect from them? We are participating in nonviolence training. But people have asked me to commit to not using pepper spray. I can't do that. We may have to pepper spray somebody. I hope we never do. I don't carry pepper spray, I've never been issued a can, I don't really approve of the use of pepper spray. But if it comes down to the use of force, I would certainly rather have myself, my wife, my kids, somebody I love very much, pepper sprayed, than hit with a stick or subjected to some other kind of pain compliance measure. In the escalation of force, pepper spray is very low on the scale. We're not going to say all you people get out of here, then right away start pepper spraying. Force is definitely an area of last resort.
That's a hard question because how of the variables, what length the period going to be. If Monday morning there's a little demonstration, and we've got officers there for 4 or 5 hours, at that rate we can absorb that kind of cost. But if this goes on day after day, month after month, it doesn't take long before there isn't money for a PAL program, where kids can be playing soccer after school. What is the risk of injury to the protestes versus the risk when pepper spraying them if we attempt to defeat the locking devise?
If you have the ability to cut them out, then do that. If you don't, then pepper spray them. What's the point of pepper spraying them again, and again and again? I don't see any sense in that.
We'd never do that. I don't have a mind set to use pepper spray. We're not even talking about it. If we have the ability to cut the lock box, we're going to do that. The court says that pepper spraying people is OK, the public opinion disagrees. The Humboldt scenes had the same effect on people as watching the Rodney King beating. People were appalled. But walking away from the situation isn't an option.
No. Not willie-nillie. There has to be a reasonable threat expectation there. We don't want it to be the fastest draw and the truest shot. We're going to draw our gun and say raise your hands, let me see there's nothing in your hands, turn around, lie down with your hands behind your back, and so on.
In terms of pointing guns at children, it's not our policy to do that. I would hope that the reports of officers pulling guns on children are greatly exaggerated. It's not our policy, and it's not acceptable behavior. Any officer who points his gun at anybody, man, woman or child, better be justified in doing so.
It comes down to one thing: a subjective opinion. That's where we run into problems, an officer's subjective opinion based on a number of things. It's impossible to come up with a matrix that's going to cover every one of those situations. So we use words like reasonable belief that his life is in danger or threatened, or there is grave danger, then he has the right to pull his gun. Nothing says he has to stand there with his gun in his holster and let somebody come out and shoot him before he draws his gun.
Yes. And some of those officers who are not trainable, really shouldn't be in law enforcement.
The main advantage is that the officer is subjected to an environment in a non threatening way that conditions him, subconsciously if not consciously, to accepting that situation as less threatening when they step into the real thing. Conflict avoidance is very important. I believe in it.
The greatest stress I've experienced in law enforcement is knowing that I'm doing what I've been trained to do, knowing that I'm doing the right thing, but realizing that a whole bunch of people are going to come along and scrutinize it all, and I may end up getting sued. There's pressure from their supervisors to go out and do certain things, to get a job accomplished when they realize there really isn't sufficient time to do it, then the frustration level is very high.
We look for indicators. We have a number of counseling programs available for our employees. But you know, police officers can feel there is a certain stigma about that. We're trained to take charge, to be in control of things, to control conflict. That's where a lot of the stress comes from.
There's the phenomenon of 'fight or flight'. This is in all of us. But when you are in a situation that you perceive to be dangerous, you start pumping adrenaline into your blood stream. Your body starts to shut down from that, and all of a sudden has to gear up for another one. It's one right after another. Years of pumping all that stuff into your system, plus eating all the junk food„donuts and fast foods, gallons of coffee that people choke down. This takes a toll on our bodies, and it takes a toll psychologically.
Training will help. Leadership helps. We can work with it internally in the way we interact with the deputies so that they have the support and the reassurance of the department. It's very stressful for them to go out and do their job, and know that if a citizen calls up and complains about them, that they're going to be under scrutiny by the department.
This is the biggest fear they have about citizens review. They think, here's a bunch of people who don't know a damn about law enforcement, they have never been out there, have never done the work, they're going to believe any story they hear, and I'm liable to loose my job simply because I went out there and did my job. Of course, with a good citizens review board that's not going to be the case.
No, except there's a whole lot about being a sheriff that I don't know yet, and it's a learning experience. As I said before, if I do nothing more then correct the attitudes we've talked about„and I'm not bad mouthing my deputies„that's success. I would like to say that we take care of our end of the business. If we have a right attitude, or at least pretend that we have a right attitude toward people, maybe that's a step in the right direction.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999What motivated you to run for sheriff?
What are you enjoying most?
What are your top priorities within the department organizationally and in the county?
During the campaign there was talk about a police review commission. Your response was that you want to get your internal affairs working in such a way that people wouldn't feel like they need a police review commission. How is that going?
In my experience, whether or not a complaint is sustained, there is almost always a problem that people have which I believe leads, in part, to them bringing a complaint. That is the attitude of the police officer being patronizing, arrogant. How do you deal with something like that?
How close are we to having an official medical marijuana policy?
Do you anticipate any repercussions from the state and federal government?
Are you applying for CAMP and COMMET funding?
How about Methamphetamine?
You're not able to take your 47 officers and put them on the meth task force. What are you able to do?
Can anything be done about the manufacturing?
I've heard a number of people say, 'everyone in the neighborhood knew that was a crack house or a meth house and nothing was ever done.' Why do you think that is?
How about the Bear Lincoln case? It caused polarization in the community. What do you think is the general sentiment among the deputies about the outcome?
Do you think that's had any effect on working with the Native Americans in the community and in Covelo?
Let's go to something a little more mundane, the jail.
What's your general attitude about the way the jail is run, and in particular, how do you feel about the way the medical care at the jail is handled?
The Department of Corrections does have a problem with insufficient allocated positions.
It was recently said on a KZYXandZ radio program that in this country jails have become the biggest mental institution. How do you deal with that?
That leads into the next question. According to last year's grand jury report, the coordination and cooperation between Mental Health and Corrections isn't that tight. Are there ways to address that?
We've seen law enforcement violence in Humboldt County with nonviolent protesters, particularly around pepper spray use. In Mendocino County, forest defenders are gearing up to protest logging in the Albion, Elk, Greenwood and other watersheds by Mendocino Redwood Company. What can nonviolent protesters expect from Mendocino County law enforcement?
Take an instance of a protester locked down, and refusing to unlock. If there is no threat to the officer, do you think pepper spray should be used?
There are videos of protesters in Humboldt County being sprayed repeatedly over a period of an hour, and then police coming in and cutting them out in ten minutes.
What about pouring or dabbing it in their eyes?
I'm concerned about the way officers use their guns. We've had reports of officers pulling their guns and pointing them at people, pointing them at children. Is it within the gun policy that officers are allowed to pull their guns willie-nillie?
Of the gun policies I've seen from several different agencies, many have the proviso that the officer is only permitted to pull his gun if he has a reasonable suspicion that either his life or the life of someone else is in danger by the person they're pulling it on. Is that reasonable?
On the issue of reasonableness, the subjective aspect of it, while not tempered, can be affected by thorough training of an officer. A well trained officer will perhaps have a different subjective idea about what's reasonable than an officer who's not very well trained, and who's first impulse may be to reach for the gun. Do you agree with that?
What do you think the advantages are for police to be involved in nonviolence training?
A major issue within law enforcement agencies and for officers is stress. How do you deal with stress?
It seems the stress is more intense for law enforcement than for other professions. I've seen statistics of high rate of stress retirement for law officers. How does the head of a department deal with stress? Are there ways the Sheriff's Department can try to short circuit any of the negative consequences?
Is there anything you'd like to add that hasn't been asked?
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