“No one is ever held accountable”: Orange County supervisor criticizes sheriff’s department for recent blunders

SANTA ANA — Facing concerns over the improper recording of attorney-client calls at Orange County jails and a recent police dog attack on a public worker, a county supervisor said Tuesday that he’s fed up with the sheriff’s department’s gaffes.

“The encyclopedia I could put together of times I’ve been told, ‘I guess we won’t do that again’ – we deserve better,” Nelson told a sheriff’s official at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting.

“No one is ever held accountable,” Nelson said. “Your agency needs to hold people accountable.”

Nelson issued his criticisms as the board considered how to address the fallout from two recent sheriff’s episodes.

In mid-August, the county acknowledged that the sheriff’s jailhouse phone carrier had improperly recorded attorney-client calls over a three-year period, allowing law enforcement to eavesdrop on confidential conversations and potentially jeopardizing criminal cases.

In late-August, a sheriff’s dog attacked a county employee in his office during a training exercise. A county supervisor later said the agency failed to clear the building.

Sheriff’s officials have launched an internal affairs probe into the K9 incident. And Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, who will step down early next year, has said it wasn’t her department’s fault that the attorney-client calls were recorded, noting it was due to a human error at the county’s phone contractor.

Undersheriff Don Barnes, a 29-year veteran of the department who is running to replace Hutchens as Sheriff, pushed back against Nelson’s remarks, saying Nelson’s characterization of the department was “inaccurate and distorted.”

“He chose to go far beyond the scope of the issue at hand, which is being thoroughly investigated by our Internal Affairs division,” Barnes said Tuesday.

“While there is always the opportunity for improvement, the day to day work of our department and its employees is that of a professional law enforcement agency working diligently to protect and serve our community.”

The sheriff’s department has been at the center of several high-profile missteps in recent years.

In Jan. 2016, three inmates escaped from Orange County jail, an incident the sheriff blamed on deputy errors and understaffing. In Dec. 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe after Orange County sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors withheld evidence and improperly used jailhouse informants to illegally obtain confessions. In July 2017, a nonviolent inmate was strangled after he was placed in a cell with an accused double-murderer, resulting in five sheriff’s employees being placed on leave.

In Aug. 2017, a Southern California News Group investigation revealed that county jailers were injuring nonviolent inmates with painful control-holds. Later that same month, a federal jury awarded $2.25 million to a woman who alleged that she’d been raped by an on-duty sheriff’s deputy, finding that the county was liable because of a sheriff’s department policy that kept the deputy on patrol duty after a prior sexual assault allegation. And, beginning in 2017, a helicopter turf war between sheriff’s and fire agencies led to a series of dangerous, in-air confrontations.

While Nelson didn’t go into detail about each of those problems, he expressed frustration that “we continually get in these situations,” and added that the K9 incident represented “the umpteenth time that we’ve been blindsided.” Nelson was complimentary of sheriff’s staff, describing them as ‘fantastic, talented people,” but challenged them to head off future problems.

“Don’t be back here apologizing next time,” Nelson said. “Learn from it.”

On Tuesday, supervisors unanimously voted to launch a second investigation, this one into the sheriff’s K9 training policies. Hutchens previously asked the county’s watchdog office to launch a probe into the improperly-recorded calls, which the board voted to initiate in August.

On Tuesday, the board also voted to seek a potential alternate vendor to operate the county’s jailhouse phone system, a change that sheriff’s officials said could take between four and nine months.