Report: Beleaguered LA Sheriff Lee Baca To Step Down After 16 Years
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is expected to step down on Tuesday after 16 years of service, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Baca, who was elected Sheriff in 1998 and was elected to his fourth term in 2010, had been surrounded with controversy over recent years.
Beset with talk of scandal, charges, investigations, and arrests, and looking at an uphill climb of an election year, Baca had thrown his support behind the creation of a civilian commission to oversee his department earlier Monday.
Critics had charged that the department has operated in a state of complete secrecy for too long, and hope that an independent commission might provide some clarity to the public.
"I think an oversight commission is important," Baca said. "We're in the 21st century, and we want transparency, we want to be able to have the public's trust."
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who originally proposed the creation of the commission, says that, while the commission will not have direct authority to enforce its recommendations, it would be aggressive.
"The power to shine a light on wrong-doing is very, very substantial," Ridley-Thomas said. "We need help to look at this, and get underneath this, and hopefully prevent it. This department has been behind the times with this kind of transparency and accountability. It just simply time."
In the midst of what looks to have been the most difficult campaign year of his career, Baca's opponents claimed that his shortcomings and failures as Los Angeles County Sheriff were what make the creation of such a committee necessary.
"We have to have (the commission)," County Sheriff candidate Bob Olmsted said. "We have to have it now because of the lack of trust of the last sixteen years. This is the failure of the LA County Sheriff's Department under Lee Baca; the fact that now we're coming to this."
Other candidates explained that, with the commission's lack of authority, the ultimate decision would have depended on the sheriff, and suggested that Baca might not have cooperate.
"In order for oversight to be effective, the sheriff has to respond to recommendations, (the committee's) recommendations, in a timely and sensible manner," candidate Paul Tanaka said. "Not just when it's politically convenient, or when it's politically necessary to save his job."
CBS2/KCAL9's political reporter Dave Bryan had caught up with Baca outside the county sheriff's headquarters in Monterey Park on Monday afternoon, and had put forward some tough questions.
When asked why it took an FBI investigation, in addition to other outside bodies, to discover many issues in Baca's own department, the sheriff responded, "The problems that have been discussed publicly, problems of four years ago, three years ago, five years ago, and seven years ago, these are problems that had been investigated to a degree. And if people don't fully disclose the facts, then a re-investigation will occur."
Bryan then questioned Baca why the public should have faith in him, despite wide belief that he has lost touch with the department.
"Let me say this: the organization grew from fourteen thousand to over eighteen thousand employees. Obviously, restructuring was difficult; we went through two recessions, we lost a lot of resources because of the recessions. I mean, I'm only as good as the tools that I have in my hand."
