A failed attempt this week to create a Riverside County sheriff’s oversight committee isn’t the end of efforts to improve accountability and transparency in law enforcement, according to those behind the movement, but it’s unclear what steps come next.
Though several community groups rallied behind Supervisor Jose Medina’s pitch to begin a process to bolster oversight for the Sheriff’s Department, the rest of the Board of Supervisors was not persuaded and the proposal never reached a vote.
Given the number of responses the Riverside County Democratic Party has received since the board meeting Tuesday, July 29, it’s clear residents are upset about the board’s inaction, according to Chairperson Joy Silver.
“They have been contacting us continually,” Silver said. “It is apparent that it is not the end of the oversight issue.”
Medina, who made sheriff’s oversight a cornerstone of his November 2024 campaign for supervisor, had proposed the board establish an ad hoc committee to consider establishing an oversight committee and office of inspector general.
The Sheriff’s Department has been under intensified scrutiny following a wave of 18 inmate deaths in Riverside County jails in 2022 that resulted in an ongoing California Department of Justice probe into in-custody deaths and federal lawsuits against Sheriff Chad Bianco and his correctional deputies.
But Bianco bristled at calls for a committee and inspector general that would have subpoena powers over his department. Medina’s proposal, he said, is an effort to take power from county voters who elect their sheriff.
“This isn’t about oversight,” Bianco said Thursday, July 31. “Oversight is a good thing. This is about political control.”
None of the deaths reported in 2022 were caused by deputies, Bianco said. Six inmates died from Fentanyl overdoses, six from natural causes, three by suicide, two by homicide and one death was labeled accidental due to an inmate swallowing a bar of soap and multiple pencils, the sheriff said.
In that same year, 109 inmates were saved from overdosing on Fentanyl, he added.
But more than 60 inmates died in Riverside County custody since June 2020, according to Sky Allen, executive director of Inland Empire United.
Organizers with the group led community conversations last spring to look into how much Riverside County residents know about in-custody deaths, if they know the coroner’s office is housed under the Sheriff Department, and whether they support oversight and accountability, Allen said.
“Of the 7,500 residents we spoke with, 84% said Sheriff’s Department accountability is good for the county and we are here to echo their sentiment,” Allen added.
But at the board meeting Tuesday, Supervisor Chuck Washington said the community seemed divided on the need for oversight and that he needed more feedback from residents. The rest of the board was in agreement — Supervisor Yxstian Gutierrez left the meeting before the proposal came before the board, however — and Medina’s motion to establish the ad hoc committee died for lack of a second.
In a news release the day after the board meeting, the Riverside County Democratic Party said community members took the time to show up to voice their support for oversight and the board “met their courage with silence.”
“That silence speaks volumes,” Silver said in the news release. “It tells the public that politics and power matter more than lives.”
Starting Over Strong, a nonprofit started in 2022 to “challenge the pervasive influence of law enforcement unions like the Riverside Sheriffs’ Association,” said in a Thursday news release that the call for oversight was not about being anti-law enforcement, but “the right to know what’s being done in our name, to see accountability when harm happens, and to have a seat at the table.”
According to Bianco, oversight of the Sheriff’s Department already exists.
On Tuesday, the county signed off on the sheriff’s response agreeing with some findings in a May grand jury report that highlighted a lack of safeguards within the jails. In its report, the grand jury said errors by the sheriff’s inmate screeners and flaws in the booking process resulted in a felon with a violent past stabbing another inmate to death in September 2024.
In Bianco’s eyes, the process is already working as it should. Dozens of agencies have oversight of the Sheriff’s Department, as do voters in Riverside County, he said.
The Sheriff’s Department gives the grand jury everything it wants for its investigations, Bianco said. The District Attorney’s Office can also get anything it wants, he said, as can the state and federal justice departments.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation could inquire and ask absolutely anything of us, and we absolutely must provide it,” he said.
Medina said he’d hoped for a better outcome on his proposal.
“I think the community demonstrated how important this issue is to them,” he said Wednesday, adding that he is committed to hearing from the community and the board to determine next steps.
