Sheriff race bias in Lancaster?

A special counsel to the Board of Supervisors has raised serious concerns about whether blacks in Lancaster are being arrested far too often by sheriff’s deputies for so-called “contempt of cop” violations.

In a report released Friday, Special Counsel Merrick Bobb said he and his investigators “were troubled by a seemingly overzealous use of such charges against blacks in the Lancaster area.” He said arrest patterns in Palmdale and Carson raised some of these same concerns, “but to a lesser degree.”

The findings are contained in Bobb’s 29^th semi-annual report on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. This one focuses largely on potential racial disparities in arrests during 2007 in which suspects were accused solely of crimes against police officers. Broadly called “obstruction,” these include resisting arrest, delaying or obstructing a peace officer and battery on a police officer without injury.

Bobb said that high numbers of these kinds of arrests involving specific racial groups are a warning sign of possible systemic discrimination by police.

Although Bobb said he found “significantly disproportionate” numbers of obstruction arrests by Sheriff’s deputies assigned to the Lancaster station, that was not the case in Los Angeles County overall, despite the fact that blacks are being arrested in numbers that far surpass their representation in the population.

In coming to that conclusion, Bobb compared the proportion of obstruction arrests to the number of total arrests for blacks, Latinos and whites.  Among the three, he found the proportions to be roughly similar.

“Our findings do not demonstrate that there is a greater burden on blacks in general in the county [for obstruction],” Bobb said. “Even though the general criminal justice system in Los Angeles falls more heavily on blacks.”

Bobb said there were, however, significant differences among the races in whether those obstruction arrests were filed as felonies or misdemeanors, with Latinos and blacks facing the more severe charges far more often.

Bobb offered no firm explanation for what he called the troubling racial disparities in Lancaster, located 55 miles northeast of Los Angeles. There, blacks, who represent only 17% of the population, comprise 42% of all arrests. They account for 64% of the obstruction arrests—a disparity far larger than anywhere else the Sheriff’s Department patrols in L.A. County.

In an interview, Bobb said the sheriff’s top commander in the Antelope Valley region, Chief Neal Tyler, told him that residents expect the department’s nearly 200 sworn personnel to police aggressively.

“He noted that those communities ask for and demand a level of [patrol] activity that may result in more confrontations and stops,” Bobb said, adding that Tyler agreed that the issue “merits further inquiry.”

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said the department was pleased with Bobb’s countywide findings and will examine closely the potential problem areas cited in the report.

“Yes, L.A. County can do better and we will always strive to improve,” Whitmore said, acknowledging that the department polices aggressively in the high desert cities of Lancaster and Palmdale “to keep the streets safe and secure. It’s an aggressive area.”

As part of his latest report, Bobb also examined hate crimes and the department’s investigation of them.

Bobb praised the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, calling it “a model of its kind.” Between 2007-09, the two-detective unit investigated more than 200 hate incidents and crimes, nearly half of the county’s cases. The unit has been widely praised in the gay and religious communities, Bobb said in an interview.

In contrast, Bobb found that the quality of hate crime investigations conducted at five randomly selected sheriff’s stations “varies considerably, from poor to acceptable to very good at the West Hollywood Station.”

He was harsher when it came to the department’s treatment of hate crimes inside the county’s jails.

“Investigation of hate crimes in the jails is shameful and reflective of an unwillingness or inability to recognize hate crimes as such,” Bobb said in his report.

Among other things, he said that potential hate crimes are not thoroughly investigated.

The report cited a 2009 case in which a disabled white man was beaten for two days by at least three inmates before jailers came to his aid, the report said. He was choked, punched and beaten with one of the inmate’s prosthetic leg.

Bobb said evidence suggested he might have been beaten because he was white, disabled or for both reasons. The assailants allegedly called him a “blue eyed devil” during one of the beatings. A deputy later noted in a report that “I believe the primary motivation for the [assault] was due to [the victim’s] disability.”

Bobb said he found it “shocking” that the investigating detective appears to have “simply abandoned the case…despite known suspects and much testimony on record.” Bobb said investigators seemingly “let the case fall through the cracks.”

For the special counsel’s complete report, including recommendations, click here.

Posted 8/6/10