[This is the entire inverview. An excerpted version was put into the issue 31 newsletter - Ed.]
Sheriff Craver was interviewed by Lynda McClure, manager of the MEC
ON BEING SHERIFF
NEED FOR POLICE REVIEW BOARD?
MARIJUANA
METH
BEAR LINCOLN
COUNTY JAIL
MENTAL HEALTH
NON-VIOLENT PROTEST & PEPPER SPRAY
USE OF POLICE FORCE
LAW ENFORCEMENT & STRESS
LAST WORDS
What motivated you to run for sheriff?
Initially it was the urging from a number of my friends. I had never given any serious consideration to being sheriff. I was really happy with what I was doing. Throughout my career people said, gee, you really do a good job, you ought to run for sheriff. I always saw it as lip service. There's a certain amount of flattery in it. 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, and that 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 to do it, a desire to try and 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. That has really been driven home by being sheriff. There is so much frustration in having things that I want to accomplish and not being able to see immediate results; saying I want to get this done and waiting and waiting and waiting for things to happen and not being able to accelerate those things. A lot of that has to do with not having learned the ropes yet. I haven't been here long enough to learn how to accomplish some of those things, but that's what I'm working on right now. How to accomplish things more quickly because, as you know, 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, but change is necessary, so we have to make it gradually. Back to your question, mainly I'm having a hard time with the frustration of wading through rules, the bureaucracy, to make things happen.
What are you enjoying most?
The variety of people I deal with. I get to meet with people. My whole life is serving people. It's public service and that's what I'm here for. So I get to deal with a lot of different people, different aspects of the community. There is a double edged sword here. What frustrates me the most also gives me gratification. I do have the direct link to those people who have specific problems that are in the area where we can control the outcome, and that is very gratifying. Even though it's very frustrating, it's also very gratifying to have the ability to try to affect that change.
What are your top priorities within the department organizationally and in the county?
My top priorities in the department are staffing and establishing a stable work force. Getting the right people to do the right jobs. We're going to have to do some re-prioritization there. It's controlled obviously by the budget parameters. We're going into a new budget year, so even though there are things I want to accomplish right now, these things may not happen until there's a finalization of the budget which is six or eight months down the road. I want the organization structured in such a way that we're able to accomplish the things that we need to accomplish in terms of providing public services.
As far as my personal goal is concerned, what I've always found,
not only in campaigning but in dealing with people, the 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 people with courtesy, with respect
and dignity. People want to see honesty in the performance of
the deputies. I want to fullfil those expectations. That sounds
like a simple thing and then it sounds like a big thing. That's
basically it. There's a whole bunch of other things I'd like to
do along the way, but the main thing is providing the people of
Mendocino County with the services that they expect from law enforcement.
I don't think they expect too much.
During the campaign there was a whole lot of talk about a police review commission. As I recall, 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. Is that something you've been able to do something on so far?
There've only been two or three complaints that have been brought to my attention since I've been in office. I've made personal contact immediately with everyone of the people who have complained. I get somebody plugged into dealing with that aspect of it. We give them immediate follow up, we get right back to them just like I said I'd do. We haven't reached a point yet where there's been an issue that has come up, been investigated, and then there's been some controversial outcome. There's a lot of disbelief, a lot of distrust in law enforcement, but having a citizens review board I don't think is going to change that a lot. There are people who simply don't trust us, that don't believe what we say. I'm convinced that for those people, it doesn't matter what we have in terms of review mechanisms. If it doesn't go the way they want it to go and the outcome is not what they expect it to be, they're going to cry foul. That's all there is to it.
I've sat in on IAB [Internal Affairs Bureau] hearings when I was on the police review commission in Berkeley. What I found was that it was a very one sided situation. Only the officer was there; the complainant was not present and only allowed to give a written statement. The attitude of the people on the board - which was made up of officers only - was essentially that this is something we have to go through, and it often ended up overlooking the fact that there was a problem.
That obviously wasn't a good model. What I would do if it comes to the point that I feel it's going to be necessary for us to have citizen review, is to start looking around to find a model that seems to be working. What works in the city of New York may not work in Mendocino County, and what works well here may not work in San Diego. We'd have to find out. The ACLU has a book out on this from what I understand. I've heard people speak on this. There's a number of models around that seem to be working fairly effectively. It's a situation that when we get to that juncture, we'll see what's going to work. I'm not just going to pick something arbitrarily. Whatever I do I'm not just going to pay lip service to the thing. I like to think that I'm outspoken and blunt enough about things - maybe I'm a little crass about things sometimes - but I'm not going to try to put up some kind of sham. If I put something into effect, it's something that's going to work or I'm not going to bother to do it. There's no sense going through the motions just to placate people.
Based on my experience with the police review board, whether or not a complaint was sustained, it was almost always a problem that people had which I think in part led to their bringing a complaint. It was what we refer to as an attitude on the part of the police officer that they were in contact with. I've been confronted with this myself on a couple of occasions. Just a feeling that this officer is being patronizing, is being arrogant. How do you deal with something like that?
I don't know if there's a hard and fast answer to that question. I've done a lot of soul searching. This is a question I've been asking myself for twenty-seven years. This is a question I've asked myself when I've had a contact with a person that turned out to be a negative contact, and I've walked away from it feeling very badly, that I botched it or somehow it got botched. What I set out to do didn't get done, it wasn't accomplished, and the reason it wasn't accomplished is the inability to communicate with these people. I've said, gee whiz, their attitude is really screwed up and that's where the problem is. But by the same token I have almost always asked myself, was my attitude screwed up? In retrospect I can say, yeah, it probably was. I've experienced the same frustration, not only in dealing with police officers but in dealing with people at every level of bureaucracy, whether it's the IRS or you name it. I've found the same thing in going into department stores. Our society seems to be that way now. Attitude seems to be a major thing.
To be specific about your question, I think I need to continually reinforce what my belief is and how we should interact with the public. 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. Nobody has a professional expectation that you're going 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. Kevin Broin, my assistant sheriff in charge of operations, really believes the same. We just need to continually reinforce that down the chain of command. We need to show that attitude of willingness to help people, a willingness to be available to people. And those below us in the chain of command need to do the same thing.
Hopefully we'll be able to accomplish that through leadership.
When there's going to be an episode of a breakdown any place in
that chain and it's brought to our attention, we're obviously
going to have some sort of an instructional episode to review
this performance and this behavior with the affected employee,
so they have a reinforced message as to what our expectations
are and what the standard of performance for this department is
going to be. Talk is cheap. I'm not very far into the job yet,
and maybe a year from now, who knows, it may be a whole different
scenario and you'll hold my feet to the fire. But I'll guarantee,
you'll never find me not trying to make that happen. I think it's
a leadership issue.
How close are we to having an official medical marijuana policy?
Very close. District Attorney Norm Vroman and I are working on this together. We went to Humboldt County and looked around there. We went to the Humboldt Cannabis Center and talked to them. We're thinking about going to Oakland to look at their center, but essentially we've got our idea for a basic, straight forward policy. The water's muddied a bit because there's a group of people who were assembled by, I believe, the Board of Supervisors. A grant was applied for and there was a consolation grant. They applied for x number of dollars and got 60% of it to put together some sort of program. I think they'll find it's probably not do-able with those funds.
Meanwhile we have Norm and I coming along saying we're off in another direction. So we want to try and pull together with those other people. In terms of a policy, we will have a policy hopefully by the first of April. Essentially what we're looking for is to come forward with a public statement as to what the expectations are. They will be basic and they may be changed. We may find ourselves having to change this in 90 days, 6 months, a year down the road, I don't know. But we're going to start someplace. This has been going on for two years and nothing has happened, and we're at a point now that we've got this thing ironed out in our minds. It will be very similar to the situation in Humboldt County. 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. A person found in possession of marijuana who has this identification card will be passed on, the same way if you were walking down the street with a prescription for Vicodin in your pocket that was issued by a physician, or any other controlled pharmaceutical. We'd handle it the same way as any prescription drug in your pocket.
Do you anticipate any repercussions from the state and federal government?
Well, I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see how they go. I'm kind of optimistic. I don't think we'll have trouble from the state. I think that 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. So the message is going to the feds pretty clearly that the states are desirous of this. I think its an issue they're going to stay away from. I don't know, we'll have to wait and see.
I know in Humboldt County they were growing marijuana indoors at the Humboldt Cannabis Center, but they weren't able to grow as much as their patients needed, so they did an outdoor grow. The Sheriff's Office up there said they weren't aware how it came about that this place was raided. It was raided by the DEA; the feds came in and took them down for 100 plants. It's kind of amazing to me that the federal government would be concerned about a 100-plant garden. Not that that's a small garden, but it's certainly not a big garden. Why would one 100-plant garden in all of Southern Humboldt County draw the attention of the federal government? I don't know. You can speculate. I don't know what the outcome of that will be. All I can say is that we in Mendocino County intend to put out a policy as to how we will deal with people and we will honor that policy. We're looking at it right now; there's more exploratory work we need to do.
I am not a marijuana user. If I was, then I would have some idea in my mind how much marijuana a person should have. It gets further complicated by the fact there are different ways to ingest marijuana. Some people smoke it, some people eat it. A person who smokes marijuana to relieve whatever pain they might have would not use as much marijuana as someone who eats it. A person who eats it would not use as much as a person who inhales it. I understand there are people who neither smoke nor eat it, but they vaporize it, they put it in a vaporizer and breath the vapor. Quite obviously a person who's going to be vaporizing the marijuana and breathing the vapor is going to use a great deal more than a person smoking it. So it's hard to say. We're somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 pounds of marijuana, and maybe 10 growing plants. I've talked about it on Don Lipmanson's show [KZYXandZ Morning Public Affairs] and in a number of forums. I've said that a plant is a plant. One plant may be four pounds, another one gram because it's a small plant. Are we talking about adult plants? We have to iron out all these things. I think 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. We need to be reasonable about the way we deal with this. For example, 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, and I would be very angry if I'd issued an ID card to somebody and the deputy came along and busted them because they had 40 seedlings in little styrofoam cups. By the same token if they have 40 plants that were 10 feet tall and really bushy, and they said they were just getting around to thinning out 30 of those plants, well then 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. We're really close to this policy.
Are you applying for CAMP and COMMET funding?
Yes, absolutely. We have an obligation to enforce the law. I've said time and time again that I'm very much in favor of seeing the law change. I'm very much in favor of having all that happen, but by the same token I'm not in favor of ignoring the law, because then I become a criminal. I think that you can't expect me on one hand to be totally honest and totally above board and to enforce the laws that you're in favor of, and turn around and break the law and be an outlaw on the other hand. You can't have me be both ways. Although I think that marijuana enforcement is a very low priority, we do have to have a mechanism in place to deal with large, commercial groves. I do expect the officers - if they're going out in helicopters and dress up in what people like to think of as battle garb - not to be invading 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'd think in terms of our guys to be out there looking for the large commercial groves.
First of all, our marijuana eradication efforts are just minuscule,
when you think in terms of how much money and personnel we have
available. We have two full time persons assigned to that unit.
I've been asked wouldn't the county be better off if they were
assigned to other things. The answer to that question is yes,
but if it weren't for the marijuana program we wouldn't have those
people because they are wholly funded by the grant and that's
what those positions are funded for. So if the grant went away,
those positions would go away. We wouldn't have anybody there.
In terms of people growing mari, trespass growers, if they're
growing on someone else's property, then I don't want to hear
them whining that we went out there and ripped up their plants,
because that's what we're looking for, mj that's being grown on
someone else's property, on public land.
How about Methamphetamine?
I've got 47 funded positions in this dept. If I could have all 47 guys on the task force I would. If I could do it, that would be all we do. If we didn't have to worry about domestic violence, burglaries, vandalism and all that other stuff, believe me, everything we did, every officer would be focused strictly on meth, because it is a very dangerous situation. Its very disruptive. People get on meth, are out of control, quickly they loose control of their lives, and I think we need to go after that. Law enforcement is never going to solve that problem. If I had 47,000 deputies to put out there we're not going to solve that. It's a behavorial problem and the only thing that's going to solve it is self limitation. People are going to burn out, they're going to realize how destructive it is, and they're going to change their lifestyles and go onto something else. But by the same token we would make the effort, maybe give someone the stimulus to want to change their habits.
You're not able to take your 47 officers and put them on the meth task force. What are you able to do?
Right now we have two officers on the task force working on that, and we're keeping our officers trained to recognize when people are on meth. One of the problems is that we walk a fine line. Lets say we have an area that has a high use of meth. The officers generally are making contact with people who are either in possession or under the influence of meth through traffic enforcement. Where I'm not really in favor of deputies stopping you out there 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. What do you want to have? Do you want to have us out there tying to do something about the meth problem, trying to curb the use, people driving around in cars under the influence, carrying meth with them on the street, or do you want us just to say, well, we'll turn our back on that and just wait for a windfall, wait for the issue to come to us.
I wonder if anything can be done about the manufacturing?
Well, there is, and that's where the task force comes in. Their primary focus is on the manufacture of meth, and the issue then is, do we go to M in the yellow pages and look for meth manufactures, or what. What do we do? And where we get this information is the officers go out there and they catch someone driving down the road with several grams of meth in their pocket. The issue then becomes where did you get it. Every now and again one of them is going to give up who they got it from. That's kind of how that works. It's kind of a trickle down effect.
How about the possibility of chasing down the chemicals that go into it?
Well, that would be great if it were possible, if everybody played by the rules including the chemical manufacturing people and the chemical sales people. There are plenty of rules and controls out there, but it doesn't happen. Some of these things are made in the United States and sold in foreign countries. People go to foreign countries and buy them and bring them back, and they make the meth here. I understand there are what is called Bevis and Butthead labs. You can go to the internet and look up how to make meth. You can go down to the store and buy ephedrine, sudaphedrine, and manufacture meth from that very easily with ordinary things you can buy in the local variety stores. You can set up a cold lab in your kitchen if you want and make meth. It used to be made in large labs with a lot of expensive lab equipment that's sophisticated and hard to come by, and bags and bags and bags of precursors.
There's a lot I don't know about it and maybe somebody from DNE or somebody who's an expert in this can tell you more about it, but I know it just doesn't work the way it should work, where chemical companies report large quantities sold. Occasionally we do get a report, but very rarely. People are smart enough. There are bold dope dealers and there are old dope dealers, but there are no old, bold dope dealers. You don't get old by being bold in this business. The bold ones we catch. It's the old ones that have gotten away.
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?
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. So there can be common knowledge that you beat your wife; everybody knows you beat your wife, but I can't arrest you. One person can come along and say you beat your wife. That doesn't make you a wife beater, and before I can arrest you for that I have to have probable cause, proof, etc, etc. And it's the same thing with common knowledge of who's a dope dealer. Well, what direct knowledge do these people have? 'Everybody in the neighborhood knows it.' When we trace these things down we hear everybody knows that so and so is making dope over there. Well, how do you know?
Let's not talk about what everybody knows, let's talk about
what you know, what specific knowledge do you have that they're
making dope? Have you seen it, tasted it, smelled it, have they
told you? Well, no, its just common knowledge. We can't generally
go and get a search warrant based on common knowledge. There has
to be more to it then that. Often it would require that we go
into a neighborhood and set up a surveillance to see if the pattern
- the times, the cars coming and going, and anything else - would
indicate there's trafficking of drugs coming out of this particular
house. So there's a great deal more to it than just people knowing
that it happens here. We have to build up probable cause for the
judge to give us a warrant. Sometimes that's not easy.
How about the Bear Lincoln case? It caused quite a bit of polarization in the community. What do you think is the general sentiment among the deputies about the outcome?
There is a gag order in that case because it's still pending. I'll be glad to answer your question. The deputies generally believe that anybody who is arrested and jailed is guilty. They have a general belief about that. And that would apply to Mr. Lincoln or to just about anybody else under these circumstances. 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's happened, I believe him. And often times that belief is only based on something like everybody knows he's making dope, or everybody knows that this is what happened because so and so said this is what happened. But we don't really know the whole story.
Getting back to the Bear Lincoln case, I really don't know the whole story, I really don't. I know what little bits and pieces I've picked up, and I've purposely stayed away from trying to find out all that information for two reasons. First because there was an active case going on, and second because I do have a big mouth and I like to talk to people, so I didn't want to find myself in a position where I was saying things that I really shouldn't be saying at the moment. 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 had never even heard one syllable from us, was that he was totally innocent. I think it's kind of human nature for it to be that way.
Do you think that's had any effect on working with the Native Americans in the community and in Covelo?
I can't say that out of fifty or sixty or seventy guys in the department that there isn't one person now who harbors pre justice against all Indians because of what happened to Bob Davis. But I think if there is that feeling, its very, very isolated. I don't think that is the case for people in the department. I don't think anybody would hold it against the entire segment of the community, in other words hate all Indians because of what Bear Lincoln did or didn't do, or what he's alleged to have done. I harbor no bad feelings toward him for what he's alleged to have done. If he's guilty of it he should be punished for it. But I have no personal anger towards him, no personal hatred for anybody who commits a crime. There are many reasons why people do the things they do.
My philosophy applies to just about anybody. Including Jeffrey Dahmer or somebody like that, but I wouldn't go to his house for lunch - God knows what would be in that stew pot.
I know there are certain people who feel we target people who
are related to Bear Lincoln or members of the Lincoln family in
retribution for this. This is totally not true, this is not happening.
In fact, 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 of people. There are a few people who were, but
a lot of them aren't; there's a lot of new people up there that
didn't even know Bob Davis.
Let's go to something a little more mundane, the jail.
There are always complaints about the jail, and many of these complaints come from people who are in there.
What's your general attitude about the way the jail is run or should be run, and in particular, how do you feel about the way the medical care at the jail is handled?
The problem I have here is that I'm very ignorant about jail operation. On one hand I know there are a lot of people in the community who feel the medical services that are provided in the jail are totally inadequate. I've had people come right out and tell me they feel that since these services are provided by an independent contractor, and that the incentive for high profits - which drives a lack of service - is responsible for the low quality. On the other hand I've got people telling me that the California Department of Corrections comes in and they do their evaluation and their review and they say we're right on track, we're doing a good job. The California Forensic Medical Group has done a review and they say we're right on track, that everything is done according to certain standards.
The Department of Corrections does have a problem with the fact that you've not allocated enough positions.
That's right, but that doesn't have anything to do with CFMG. I was speaking of CFMG right now. I have to agree with you, but staffing is a whole other area. They 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. Where that manifests itself for example is that corners will get cut. That there simply aren't enough people to do all the things that need to be done. They only do the things they have to do. Maybe they should be keeping a particular record, and they will skip doing that because they think, this isn't really that important. Their supervisors misses it because they're overworked. 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 got. It would be very important.
That's the next question. That's a big issue. Now,of course, the previous sheriff put in for a mental health offender grant.
The final product is going to the Board of Corrections today.
A program on KZYXandZ recently said that in this country jails have become the biggest mental institution there is. How do you deal with that?
I've heard the same thing. 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 that I'm dealt. That
is that people who happen to be mentally ill go out and commit
criminal offenses and we have to take appropriate action as far
as that's concerned. A shift to, say, lets make the Sheriff's
Office responsible for the treatment of the mentally ill? We don't
have enough people to deal with the criminals in the community,
with the criminal problems that we have, let alone branching out
and say, now in addition to that we're going to be providing mental
health treatment services to people on the street. That should
be a function of the Mental Health Department.
Well, 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?
The director of Mental Health who was here last year is gone now, and so is the sheriff. I have a real serious personal problem with the fact we're paying California Forensic Medical Group to provide mental health services in the jail, when a block down the street we have a County Mental Health Department. Why is that? I don't understand. Nobody can tell me. Of course, there's so many other things going on in the Sheriff's Department I haven't been able to say, lets sit down and solve this problem, and let's not leave this table until we get it done. I would love to do that, to say lets not leave this table until we address this issue. Don't ask me when I'm going to be able to do that, I don't know. But I intend to work on that problem.
It doesn't make sense to me that the taxpayers, the voters, the people of Mendocino County fund a mental health organization to provide treatment for people who are mentally ill, and then turn right around and use additional tax funds from that same group of people to hire a private contractor to provide substantially the same services. Maybe they're not providing the same services, and maybe I'm way out of line on this, and I should be having more conversations with Mental Health, and see what's going on down there. Maybe they have a matrix of services they provide - I know they do crisis intervention for people who walk in, for self committals, they deal with 5150s [short term involuntary commitments for threat to self or others]. The people in jail don't arise to the level of 5150s. If they do we can take them down to Mental HAealth and they keep them there until they're somewhat stabilized. Then they come back to the jail.
But in terms of those clinical services that a person needs to maintain normalcy - whatever that is - so that they don't go out and become criminals because of their mental impairment, those things are not happening. This is one of the things that's going to be covered in this grant, if it goes through. This is one of the things they'll be striving for - intensive case management. That will affect the walking wounded, the people who are out there not being served by Mental Health. This is only going to affect those people who become criminals - or better said, engage in criminal activities - as a result of their mental illness. Once they reach jail, the jail being the threshold, and they're diagnosed as having a mental illness, they'll be diverted to court, as opposed to being punished. They're going to be released. Obviously that won't cure anybody. Intensive case management will give their life some normalcy so they will not engage in criminal activity, will not be re-incarcerated. That's the target for the whole thing. It's not a panacea, it's not a long term, far reaching program.
First of all, take into consideration what is it we usually arrest these people for? Some of them self medicate on alcohol. If we have a person out there who's under the influence of alcohol AND creating a problem, we have to arrest them. What's the maximum amount of time they're going to do in county jail anyway, if they say no, I don't what anything to do with mental health diversion, throw the book at me, your honor. What's the most he's going to give him? Thirty days? Trespassing, for example. People who are homeless - because they're mentally ill they can't hold down a job, or are homeless for whatever reason - and they're sleeping in somebody's garage or sleeping in somebody's car. It's a simple trespass. People don't do years and years in prison for that, only a few days in the county jail. So if we have a situation with an noncompliant person, patient if you will, and they're 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. Just put me in the county jail and I'll be out of here. I don't know.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying this right now because we're trying to get a grant approved by the Board of Corrections to try and put this program on and it sounds like I'm talking the program down. I don't mean to be saying that, but I am saying lets be realistic about what the expectations can be here. I don't think we should look at any program through rose colored glasses and say this is going to solve all our problems. This program may not, but I hope it will solve a few of them. I think our statistics show that 8% of the jail population is mentally ill.
I think mental illness and substance abuse of all kinds should be a public health, not a criminal justice issue. Law enforcement should be relieved of that burden.
I couldn't agree more. And when we're talking about that 8%
figure, are we talking about the people who are locked up in county
jail and will remain locked up for a few days, a week, a month,
or are we talking about the people who are arrested, who are held
in the county jail for 24 hours or so till they're sober and then
turned loose? Many are arrested for 647F, disorderly conduct,
which is a common drunk. We release them with 949D1, which means
they were only arrested as a civil detainer, there's no further
criminal action taken against these people. They are turned loose
as soon as they are sober and they show some rationallity. Do
they come into that 8% category? I don't know.
We've seen a fair amount of law enforcement violence in Humboldt County with nonviolent protesters, particularly around pepper spray use. Here in Mendocino County, forest defenders are gearing up for protests of logging in the Albion, Elk, Greenwood and other watersheds by Mendocino Redwood Company. What can nonviolent protesters expect from Mendocino County law enforcement?
This is an issue that's very difficult to answer because the question is also, what can we expect from them. I spoke with the Greens the other night and with some people that are supposed to be able to take information back to other people. We are participating in nonviolence training. But people have asked me to commit to not using pepper spray. I can't do that. I sure don't want to ever have to shoot someone. I'm not packing a gun, though I have one accessible. But don't ask me to make a commitment that I will never shoot anyone, because I may leave this building at lunch time and have to shoot somebody. I don't know that, but that's within the bag of tricks that a police officer has to expect. He has this expectation that he may have to do that.
I hope I never have to do that. I hope I never have to draw my gun and point it at anybody, let alone shoot them. But the fact is I may have to shoot somebody. We may have to pepper spray somebody. I hope we never have to pepper spray anybody. I don't carry pepper spray, I don't own a can, I've never been issued a can, I've never been trained in the use of pepper spray. I've been pepper sprayed, but I don't really approve of the use of pepper spray, but by the same token, 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.
If you look at the escalation of force, pepper spray is very low on the scale. Even though it's very painful, the likelihood of a long-lasting injury as a result of pepper spray is minuscule. We're not going to go out there and say all you people get out of here, then right away start pepper spraying people. That's not going to happen. You're probably going to see negotiations, a whole lot of things done prior to that. Force is definitely an area of last resort.
Could you see there being an instance where a protester is locked down and refuses to unlock? If there is no threat to the officer, do you think pepper spray should be used at that time?
I don't know. Here again, that's a hard question to answer because how infinite is this lock down? What is this period going to be? We have to take into consideration that if the deputy makes $17 an hour - not taking benefits into consideration - we have to pay him time and a half for being out there, which takes it up to about $27 and hour. If I have 10 of them out there - which is nearly one forth of our entire work force for the whole county - to mitigate one of these things, we're talking $270 an hour it's costing us. That's not bad if you say, Monday morning there's this little demonstration, and we've got these officers out there for 4 -5 hours at that rate. We can absorb that kind of a 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, there isn't money to underwrite programs where kids can be playing soccer after school and things like that. All that money goes away, all that money's going towards trying to mitigate this situation with people blocking a road. You get to a point where you ask, what are we going to do? If we attempt to move the barrel or whatever these people are locked down to, or get something to defeat the locking devise, what is the risk of injury to those people versus the risk when pepper spraying them?
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.
If you're going to cut them out, then cut them out. If you have the ability to cut them out, then do that. If you don't, then pepper spray them. If you pepper spray them once and they don't move, what's the point of pepper spraying them again, and again and again? I don't see any sense in that.
What about pouring it in their eyes?
We'd never do that. I would never allow officers to pour it in their eyes or to swab it in their eyes, or anything like that. This is leading in a direction I really don't want to go because I don't have a mind set to use pepper spray. We're not even talking about it. In every conversation I have, people keep bringing up this point. I don't want it to be part of the dialog. I want it to be no, let's not even think in these terms because its easy to make the transition if we're thinking in those terms. If we have the ability to cut the lock box, we're going to do that, cut the lock box open and take them out of there. I got to tell you that, regardless of what the court says that pepper spraying people was OK, the public opinion disagrees.
I talked with some extremely conservative people shortly after the pepper spray incident went down, and they were very much appalled by it, very much against it. So we have a situation where the courts say it's OK but a large block of society - I didn't talk with a large number of people, but I talked with a large variety of people in the community - is generally against it. I'm talking about burly truck drivers, old ranchers, craftsmen, tradesmen, who were really appalled by the pepper spray. It had the same effect on people as watching the Rodney King beating. People were appalled by that. So I don't want to have to deal with a community that elected me sheriff and betray that community by doing the thing that appalls them so much. I want to make certain that if I have to reach that point, that if I have to cross that threshold, that we've exhausted all available means to do the right thing and there is simply no alternative.
Walking away from the situation by law enforcement is not an
alternative; we cannot walk away. Just think what could happen.
Think of the frustration level of some guy who's trying to support
his wife and kids by chopping down trees and sees this as being
a situation that's going to take his livelihood away from him
forever and ever. The fatalistic view that some of those people
are likely to take, and the consequences of having a riot between
loggers and environmentalists. We have environmentalists who feel
as passionately about saving those trees as some of the people
in the timber industry feel about cutting them down. So we could
have a clash of the Titans out there if we weren't there. Walking
away from the situation isn't an option.
Getting back to shooting people, what's the sheriff's gun policy? I've seen in everything I've read on the issue that lethal force is the absolute last resort.
That's right.
But I'm more 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?
No. Not willie-nillie. There has to be a reasonable threat expectation there. For example, say we have a report of a young man who's left his house with a gun and making threats toward someone. The officer then sees that young man a short time later in close proximity to the house. It would not be unreasonable for that officer to draw his weapon, point it at that individual, and ask him to raise his hands, keep his hands up and keep him covered until the officer can assure himself that the person does not have the gun on him. We don't want it to be the fastest draw and the truest shot who's going to walk away from this situation. We're not going to give anybody the level playing field like they did with Gary Cooper in High Noon. We won't stand out there and face each other off, and when I count three, draw your gun if you got it, and we'll shoot and see who walks away. We're not going to do that. 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. I'm not saying it hasn't happened. I found myself one time pointing my gun at two little kids. One was about six, the other was maybe four. I didn't walk up to two little kids and pull my gun out. People called and suspected burglars in a house. They were watching this house and they saw the door that had been closed all morning now standing open, and they didn't feel good about it. So I went to do a house search, had my gun out. Day time residential burglars rarely shoot anybody, but it's a precaution that is reasonable. So I had the gun in my hand, I opened a closet door and see these two little kids standing there, looking down the barrel of my gun. Well, I didn't feel real macho about that. Obviously, I holstered my gun and took care of business with the kids. Things like that will happen. So if you were to ask me if I'd ever pulled my gun on kids, I'd say, yes I have. But some of the reports I've heard may be somewhat exaggerated, I don't know. Let me put it this way. 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.
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?
Sure, but the point is, what are the words you've used. Go back over those words and lay them all out. 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. Are we talking about a 15 year old boy sitting in a room, who happens to be six foot three, 190 lbs, wearing a suit and tie, and well groomed, or are we talking about some guy in the dark shadows in the middle of the night, a large figure of a person? How do we know if he's 15 or 55? We don't. The guy's got the body of a man. What are the other circumstances of the thing? Is this a situation where someone is simply walking down the street, minding their own business and an officer says, well, I want to find out who this guy is so he pulls his gun out, points it at him just to say 'who are you?' Why was the officer there, why was the person there? There are so many variables, that 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. What is he going there for?
For example, if a woman calls and says 'my neighbor across the street has been making cat calls every time I walk by or has been calling me up with obscene remarks,' the officer wouldn't go to the guy's door with his gun drawn, because he's dealing with a situation that isn't lethal. The guy could be a total kook, but that's not a lethal situation. But if a woman calls and says 'I heard a horrible row across the street, and then I heard a woman scream and a loud bang, I think it was probably a gun shot,' and an officer goes to investigate, he better have his gun out. 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.
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?
Yes. And some of those officers who are not trainable, really shouldn't be in law enforcement. They should be selling cars, building houses, they should be doing other things. They should not be in law enforcement.
What do you think the advantages are for police to be involved in nonviolence training?
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. For example, if he's out there
dealing with a bunch of people that have a particular political
view, and he has had conversations with those people and has had
first hand experience with those people, and then turns around
a few weeks or months later and deals with those same people in
a protest, it doesn't feel quite so threatening. And I don't think
those people feel so threatened by the officer either because
they say, this guy talks a bunch of trash, but I went through
nonviolence training with him and he's not a threat, he's not
going to hurt me, he's not going to shoot me, he's not going to
beat me up. The officers feel the same way, this is not a bad
person. Plus the fact that you learn about cause and effect. You
really shouldn't do this because if you do it's going to cause
that. Conflict avoidance is very important. I believe in it.
A major issue within law enforcement agencies and for officers is stress. How do you deal with stress?
I don't want to minimize the role of stress on a police officer, but there's a lot of stress in a lot of areas. I think everybody has stress in their lives at various levels. You talked about training. In some of the situations I've been in that I think are just hunkey-dorey, you'd be stressed out, freaking out, because you've never been trained to deal with those situations and it's all foreign to you. There's a lot of stress. 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. When you're out there trying to protect somebody, trying to save property or save lives, and you're probably going to get sued for it. Somebody is going to the newspapers and tell them something that will get printed that is biased, that is not true. The word goes out through the community, false stories go out that you can't do anything about, and all these things have an impact on the stress level of law enforcement. 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 go out day after day taking burglary reports, vandalism reports. We know the odds are we probably are never going to find the people who are doing these crimes. The odds are in favor of those people getting away with it-70/30 at least. That all adds to the stress of the job. You went out and worked your heart out to do the right thing, and you've given them the benefit of the doubt and now somebody has filed a personnel complaint against you. There's a belief in law enforcement that if you stop somebody and give them a ticket, you're probably going to be OK. But if you stop someone and say, this is the reason I stopped you and you really shouldn't have been doing this, take it easy next time, this person is probably going to file a complaint against you. Just give them a ticket, arrest them, and they probably won't file a complaint; don't give them a break and it will be all right. I think that's a myth, but there are a lot of people in law enforcement who believe that.
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?
That's one of the things I should learn more about. 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. We know the guy you're talking with maybe wants to stab you, maybe he wants to shoot you, maybe if he gets a chance he'll take a poke at you, he'll knock you on your butt. So there are all these things. There's the phenomenon of 'fight or flight'. This is in all of us.
We have those two instincts, either fight or run. But when you are in a situation that you perceive to be dangerous, you start pumping adrenaline into your blood stream. You may not be able to do either, not fight the person nor run from the person. Then you leave that situation and 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. We don't have the smoking like we used to. Everybody used to smoke when I first started in law enforcement. I was a non smoker, but I had to ride around in a car with people for eight hours and smoked their cigarettes right along with them because I was in the car breathing their smoke. So this takes a toll on our bodies, and it takes a toll psychologically.
We should be looking for a better way to alleviate these things. One thing they've dealt with is the screening process, hiring people who are better suited to deal with the stress of law enforcement. 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. If the complainants can create a more compelling argument then the deputy, there's a likelihood they're going to be sanctioned for simply doing their job, even when they did it right in the first place. 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. Setting up a citizens review board, from what I understand, is a very time consuming, very costly, serious undertaking. You can't just say, let's go down to the MEC and impanel six people for the review board. 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. Should we also have an independent investigation? Who would do that? I know some who have a deep distrust and hatred for law enforcement. They have a horrible bias against law enforcement. Are they going to do an objective investigation? Who will? Who's going to pay for that? Do we take positions from this office? If so, which ones?
I've got a sergeant sitting over here doing a clerical job.
I've got two persons sitting in personnel doing background checks,
writing letters and addressing envelopes. It's not what they signed
up for and not what they have an aptitude for, not what they can
do skillfully. They're overpaid to do that. This is misuse of
manpower allocations. In order to get clerks to do that do I have
to eliminate deputies? What else can I eliminate? Next week we
start working on the budget and I intend to find out, because
I intend to put the round pegs in the round holes and the square
pegs in the square holes. We have to do that.
Is there anything you'd like to add that hasn't been asked?
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. It's everywhere. If you go down to the local clothing store, you'll find that attitude. You find an attitude when you go into coffee shops, you find it every place. What we need to say is, I can't change the whole world, and I can't change the whole scheme of bureaucracy. But I would like to change the way we deal with it. 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. Maybe somebody else will get that infection and it will spread to somebody else, who knows!
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is
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