Sheriff watchdog on listening tour

Sonoma County Latinos have expressed concerns about the election of Donald Trump, who campaigned on promises to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border. At a recent meeting of the county’s newest office, the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach or IOLERO, those worries were aired publicly.

“How can I feel safe when I feel what may be the implementation of a police state nationally?” asked Roy Jimenez, at the Sonoma meeting following the introduction of Jerry Threet as director of IOLERO.

That comment was followed by several asking what the level of cooperation between the Sheriff’s Office and the federal government was, and whether or not a potential “sanctuary city” status really had any legal substance. The IOLERO was established to open doors of communication between law enforcement and the community.

Dave Ransom recalled the May 2012 raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Petaluma, in which three ICE agents were injured and one man arrested in an early-morning raid that involved flash grenades and several exchanges of gunfire. That raid, one of 13 that took place regionally the same day, targeted active gang members under federal indictment in murder charges, and was not about immigration violations.

Sheriff’s Lt. Bret Sackett acknowledged that local law enforcement had not been informed of the activities of ICE. “We would hope there would be cooperation, but there isn’t always,” he said. Threet noted that ICE is an independent federal agency and, as such, they can take action without local support.

That exchange did little to ease concerns many residents have over the stated goal of a Trump administration to deport residents who may be in violation of immigration law.

The establishment of the IOLERO, however, was not meant to solely address concerns over immigration. The body set up to monitor complaints against the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office for alleged misconduct was recommended by a law enforcement task force at the end of over a year of hearings into the October 2013 killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by Sheriff’s Deputy Erick Gelhaus in the unincorporated Moorland neighborhood of Santa Rosa.

“One of the main recommendations was the creation of an office like this, to provide civilian review of the sheriff’s department,” said Threet, 55, the director and first employee of IOLERO. “The Board of Supervisors took that recommendation and crafted an office that had a dual mission of civilian review of the Sheriff’s Office, and also serving as a bridge between certain communities and the Sheriff’s Office to improve relationships. And that’s really the two main functions of our office.”

Threet attended the meeting at El Verano School as part of an outreach tour of the new law enforcement auditor’s office. About 30 community members attended the meeting, though only about half a dozen were representative of the Hispanic community.

Threet moved to Sebastopol in 2015 but kept his job as a deputy city attorney in San Francisco until the IOLERO position opened up. In San Francisco he worked on tenant rights and other neighborhood safety issues for 11 years. He also worked in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington in the anti-trust division. He earned joint degrees in law and public policy from the University of Texas.

Despite the concerns over national issues, especially immigration policy, Threet presented the mission of IOLERO as primarily a law enforcement auditor’s office, to receive complaints from the public on perceived misconduct in the Sheriff’s Office.

“When a member of the public files any complaint with our office, that guarantees it will be audited,” he said. Complaints from the Sheriff’s Office itself also come to IOLERO, but those are more limited in scope to uses of force, biased policing, and any fourth amendment issues like searches and seizure.

That’s different than what happens to public complaints that come to IOLERO. “It doesn’t matter what level of complaint they are. It could be discourtesy, conduct unbecoming - any kind of lower-level complaint will still get audited by our office. So there is an advantage to filing here, in particular for folks who are afraid of retaliation. The fact that we’re going to be automatically auditing that complaint is an assurance that there’s an extra set of eyes that will be watching what happens to that complaintant.”

Threet acknowledged that members of the Hispanic community have been unwilling to be forthcoming in their complaints, whether about law enforcement or, to use another example, housing. “I think there is a good deal of distrust in the immigrant community with law enforcement that plays out in several ways,” he said. “The immigrant community is very reluctant to come forward with complaints when they believe they have a valid complaint, for fear of retaliation.”

Threet emphasized the role of the newly-formed Community Advisory Council, an 11-member board intending to function as a bridge between the county’s many communities and the Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s one council representing different towns, some of them unincorporated, a variety of folks with different demographic characteristics,” he said. “There are seven women, four men, four of Hispanic/Latino heritage, and three African-Americans, with four of the council bilingual in Spanish and English.”

The CAC held its first meeting on Dec. 5, when the 11 members met each other for the first time, elected officers and set priorities. They plan to hold monthly public meetings going forward on the first Monday of the month at the PRMD offices, starting at 5:30 p.m.

Threet will also be conducting more public-outreach meetings to focus on bringing together deputies and community members to have an open, round-table exchange.

“The goal is to increase understanding between law enforcement and community members,” he said. “We don’t want it to devolve into some sort of shouting or protest, that’s not really the goal of this kind of meeting.”