LOS ANGELES – The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday in support of recommendations by the Inspector General aimed at weeding out sub-par sheriff’s trainees before they become long-term hires.
Supervisors Hilda Solis and Michael Antonovich recommended asking Sheriff Jim McDonnell to report back to the board with a plan to improve probationary supervision.
“Deputy sheriffs play a central role in the county’s justice system,” their motion stated. “To properly prepare trainees for a law enforcement career — and to identify those unsuitable for such a career — the Sheriff’s Department must provide each deputy sheriff trainee with a meaningful probation training period and performance evaluation.” [View the motion here.]
That evaluation is particularly critical as the department pushes hard to hire more deputies to fill its ranks, Solis and Antonovich said.
The Office of Inspector General, responsible for independent oversight of the Sheriff’s Department, concluded in a May report that “the department is missing a crucial opportunity to weed out low-performing and potentially problematic deputies during the one-year probationary period.”
Of 334 trainees coming out of the academy in 2014, not one was released for performance-related reasons, according to the report.
Ninety percent of evaluations reviewed by the OIG happened after the end of the one-year probation period.
During that first year, trainees can be released at will. After probation is over, new hires are protected by civil service rules that make it harder to terminate them.
The Sheriff’s Department has already agreed to probationary review of new hires in response to reforms recommended by the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence and a 2014 settlement with the ACLU.
New policies were rolled out, but aren’t being followed across all units, the OIG concluded.
“None of the written evaluations reviewed by the OIG contained the basic criteria necessary for an effective assessment of performance,” the report stated, offering examples of numerous evaluations with cut and pasted text offering little specific information about individual trainees.
The OIG made four recommendations. McDonnell agreed to the first, according to board documents, which calls for developing specific performance benchmarks and better documenting evaluations.
But McDonnell objected to the OIG’s three other proposals, citing workload and staffing issues, according to the board motion. Those recommendations include assigning a training officer to every trainee throughout the year-long probationary period, letting go any probationary trainees who “consistently do not display aptitude for the position,” and requiring a commanding officer to sign off on any decisions to grant a trainee permanent employment status.
The board motion served to highlight the board’s lack of authority over the elected sheriff.
“The board wishes to partner with the sheriff in exploring the best options,” the motion stated before adding that it “would like to open a public dialogue” … and “solicit the department’s assistance.”
The board voted unanimously to ask McDonnell to report back in 60 days with a plan for specific benchmarks and documentation as well as ideas on other ways to achieve the OIG’s objectives and improve probationary supervision.
The vote was made without comment or discussion.
–
AngelaAnn says
There’s good cops, there’s bad cops, college or not. To me, it’s a matter of integrity, education, good training and no anger, drug, alcohol, or racial issues. It’s easy to see that many sub level people are allowed to become cops, and I too believe that the threat of a law suit keeps some of these cops in jobs they aren’t qualified for, and aren’t any good at. In any other business these people would be fired or put on probation. The “good old boy network” doesn’t equal good cops. Like a gang, these networks, unions, etc. aren’t looking out for the good of the people they serve, they are just protecting their members, bad and unsuited for their jobs or not. That’s wrong.
Gowchong says
I came home from Vietnam. Hand to hand combat trained. Jungle warfare survival trained. SERE school trained. A rock hard combat veteran.
I went to apply for Sheriff’s Deputy. I was turned down. Why? I stood 5’6.5″. I was a half inch too short! So they turned me down. Back then minimum height was 5’7″. I was bummed, but rules are rules and qualification standards were qualification standards.
They changed the height requirements when minorities and women complained. By then I was well in to another career as a youth pastor, soon to become a school teacher. It’s been a satisfying 40 years working with kids as a pastor and as a public school teacher. Glad they had that height requirement.
Tim Scott says
Is anyone surprised? Really?
Shane Falco says
As I’ve said before, the LASD does everything possible to flood minorities and women (many times with questionable backgrounds) into academies rather than focusing on hiring the most/best qualified candidates regardless of color or gender. As such, the bar is lowered from the very beginning.
Some recruits are just a bad fit from the very beginning and are shown extreme leniency and are often recycled into the next academy rather than being terminated while in the academy all for the sake of touting inclusion and “equality”.
Once out of the academy these new deputies are sent to the jails for a couple of years where there are the same type of subpar deputies looking out for and running interference for their trainees simply because they share a skin color. These new deputies are coddled and sheltered from reprimand and taught to ignore policy and instead follow people who have your back.
They also learn to threaten to sue for racial discrimination if you’re facing separation from the department and soon these bad probationary deputies deserving of being fired, are now untouchable. Many cut corners, falsify incident reports and become emboldened to substandard and often dishonest work.
That’s how you end up with Baca/Tanaka blind followers. The GED graduate deputy who scored a 70 on the entrance exam, questionable background and barely literate from the bad neighborhood is the easy mark to buy into the narrative that the right people will protect you. Your Falco type with a college degree and high scores through out doesn’t sacrifice integrity and knows that there’s no shortcut for hard work and following policy, not people.
So…Tim, now you have a better understanding of how the deputies you despise are the products of the very same left leaning social promotion programs folks like you tout as the fix when in reality, you’re the cause.
Tim Scott says
Sure Shane. If we just went with all good old white boys things would be just great. Maybe if we just used genocide on everyone else America would be more to your liking? Oh, wait, I’d still be here. You probably would be more for genocide followed by a drumhead court with a Falco in charge.
The real problem isn’t “they bend over backwards for diversity.” The real problems are:
One: Nepotism rules. You and your brothers all got in because your dad was a cop. Obviously, he is a cop from “the good old days” and given how you turned out he has to be about as bigoted as they come. No doubt your brothers as well.
Two: Blue code first. One thing every cop knows, right from the start, is “protect your own or pay the price.”
Three: The union. The union is driven by that same code. Union members should look at the union demands that disgraced officers get their pensions even while they are in jail and say “hell no.” But instead they consider their union to be “fighting for me.”
Shane Falco says
There you go again, Tim.
You’re throwing out words like genocide and acting as if I want to make the sheriff’s department all white.
I never said that. In fact, I’ve said that pandering to anybody because of their skin color creates problems.
It would be better for any employer to higher the best suited candidate for the job, regardless of sex, religion or race. Whoever scores the highest and has the best background should get the job. Right Tim?
Aren’t you the one pontificating about just how bad the sheriff’s department is? Wouldn’t you like to drill down to the root cause and be upset that lower scoring candidates are given entry, and are also propped up by others, recycled into classes, often have difficulty writing reports, threaten frivolous lawsuits that would cost the taxpayers money, then blindly and willingly follow orders of a corrupt boss. Wouldn’t you want these badges thugs fired instead of putting a gun in their hand and a pension in their pocket?
Nepotism? That’s what you’re spewing out? Sure, even though we all work in different departments, live in different cities, surely it’s obviously nepotism that lands the job. We all have college degrees and have grown up knowing the rigors of the job. A simple phone call by a background investigator to any of the Falco departments will tell them we don’t really hang out with other cops, don’t get involved in politics, follow department policy, have parents married 60+ years with no drama.
Tim, once again you dismiss the virtues of hard work and a good reputation. It appears that concept is lost on many.
Tim Scott says
If you don’t like having the persona you project pointed out, why do you project it?
Shane Falco says
Same ol Tim.
You criticize the sheriffs department and the deputies while also being 100% for the process that brings on, retains, and then rewards these bad and often criminal employees.
That’s why you avoided the questions all together. Then again, you live your life throwing out comments behind a keyboard and would be terrified having to work in this environment.
Tim Scott says
Actually, the persona I project here is pretty much the same as I project in the world. I am no more likely to kiss up to a deputy in real life than I am here. And no more likely to let a badge licking sycophant pass unremarked.
As to you, if I saw someone in real life treating everyone they encountered as a “cockroach,” I’d call them on it just like I have you. If you want to step out from behind your keyboard and verify that, I am, as always, more than willing.