Riverside County supervisors Tuesday, March 12, agreed to keep the Sheriff’s Department and coroner’s office under one roof while supporting measures intended to ease concerns of families whose loved ones have died in jails or through deputies’ use of force.
The 5-0 vote rebuffed requests, including advice from a former supervisor, to separate the offices to solve what critics maintain is a conflict of interest when it comes to the coroner investigating in-custody and use-of-force deaths.
Sheriff Chad Bianco opposed splitting the offices. And a report from the county executive office, which handles county government’s daily affairs, said a split would create more problems than it would solve.
“I’m not certain that the separation that was requested … at this point in time gives us a better result than the refinements and efforts and changes in policies that are being recommended today,” Supervisor Chuck Washington said.
Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who with Supervisor V. Manuel Perez suggested a feasibility study on splitting the two offices, noted that many jail inmate deaths are drug-related, with Washington lamenting what he called the near-impossible tasks of stopping drugs from being smuggled into jails.
“I’m not completely on board that what the executive office is recommending is the best path,” Jeffries said. “But I’m not sure I know of a better path just yet.”
Bianco’s department, the largest law enforcement agency in the nation’s 10th most-populated county, has come under scrutiny following a wave of inmate deaths — 18 alone in 2022 — in its five jails that have led to multiple lawsuits against the county.
In addition, the California attorney general’s office is conducting a civil rights investigation of the department to determine whether it “engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing … relating to conditions of confinement in its jail facilities, excessive force, and other misconduct,” according to a state justice department news release.
The board ordered the executive office in December to look into separating the coroner and sheriff.
While the sheriff and coroner have been separate for much of the county’s history, supervisors combined it with the sheriff in 1999 amid concerns about mismanagement and a lack of training of coroner employees. Today, 48 of California’s 58 counties have combined sheriff’s/coroner’s offices.
The ACLU of Southern California and the Sheriff’s Accountability Coalition, a group of criminal justice reform advocates, argue that there’s a conflict of interest in having a coroner’s office that reports to the sheriff and is trusted with autopsies and investigations of jail inmate and police-involved deaths.
“An independent examiner would conduct autopsies from a medical standpoint, without the undue influences of protecting the officers or departments involved,” the ACLU wrote in an October letter to the board.
Those calling for separate offices include former supervisor Bob Buster, who was on the board when the offices were merged. Instead of a coroner, the board could appoint an independent medical examiner to conduct death investigations, Buster told supervisors.
“You can’t allow the biggest department (in county government) to silo itself off from all the rest,” said Buster, who served as a supervisor from 1992 to 2012, when he lost to Jeffries. “Cooperation and openness create their own checks and balances as feedback and debate centers around the best way to meet tough issues.”
Supervisors also heard from the families of deceased jail inmates, who talked about the difficulty getting information about their loved ones’ deaths.
One of them was Lisa Matus, whose son, 29-year-old Richard Matus Jr. died in August 2022 after ingesting fentanyl at the Cois Byrd Detention Center in French Valley.
“Families have waited well over a year to get autopsy reports, restricting them from filing suit, and therefore they lose their ability to question or look into what happened to their loved one because most attorneys won’t look at the case without the reports,” said Matus, who is suing the county over her son’s death.
“We as a community are not going to settle for inaction and disregard to the lives of our loved ones,” she added. “If it takes further action, then so be it. Because the corner and the sheriff should never be under the same roof.”
In addition, the board heard from Undersheriff Don Sharp, who defended Bianco and the department’s transparency when it comes to in-custody and use-of-force fatalities.
“I’ve been in this business for 35 years. I’ve worked for many sheriffs,” Sharp told supervisors. “I will tell you, by far … Sheriff Bianco is more transparent than anybody I’ve ever worked with.”
Sharp later added: “This isn’t (a case of) ‘Today, we’re going to start doing something different.’ We’ve been doing that for the last five years (to make) a better department …”
While recommending the coroner and sheriff stay together, the executive office report recommended the sheriff have formal agreements with other counties to conduct independent autopsies of in-custody and use-of-force deaths, something officials said the department is already finalizing.
The board also asked the executive office to work with the sheriff to set up a family liaison office to guide families through the death investigation process. And supervisors want an annual report on how well the department is sharing information with families about their loved ones’ deaths.
“No family should wait a year to hear why their loved one died or how their loved one died,” Jeffries said. “That’s just being mean unless there are some (extenuating) circ*mstances.”
