Under the leadership of elected Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern, the agency that claims to serve the community with integrity and fairness has instead fostered an us-versus-them law enforcement culture that breeds corruption and threatens the public’s legal rights and physical safety.
Over the last decade, the Sheriff’s Office misconduct has ranged from excessive force and neglect, to racial discrimination, to the illegal recording of privileged attorney-client conversations, leaving in its wake dead bodies, grieving families and costly lawsuits.
Yet the sheriff’s power and budget continue to grow. Rather than thoroughly investigate the agency, the county has rewarded it with ever increasing sums of money. This era of no accountability has gone on too long, and both our district attorney and county Board of Supervisors owe us better.
The illegal recording scandal is the latest example. In August, a published video showed a deputy admitting to a supervisor that he recorded private conversations between detained youths and their lawyers — a flagrant violation of the constitutional right to counsel and attorney-client privilege.
To her credit, District Attorney Nancy O’Malley investigated the deputy’s conduct and, after the discovery of additional recordings, charged him with four counts of felony eavesdropping. Her office is also reviewing juvenile prosecutions referred by the Sheriff’s Office.
This is an appropriate first step, but not nearly enough. Investigating and charging only the deputy caught on tape treats a symptom while allowing the underlying disease to flourish.
There is every reason to approach this scandal as yet another in a long line of systemic failures, one that is a product of culture and policy rather than the isolated acts of a rogue officer. At the least, the public deserves a wider and more public investigation to understand the full scope of the illegal conduct.
For one, the deputy himself suggested that illegal recordings are standard practice. Second, given the sheriff’s broad authority, there are many ways in which this sort of surveillance could occur.
Lawyers must often speak with their clients, both youth and adult, in environments controlled by the sheriff. If deputies listen in at office substations, they may use the same practice for jail meeting rooms and phone lines, and in courthouse holding areas. As Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods said, “we have to be on guard that it can be occurring anywhere at any time.” That is the reality that must guide the district attorney’s investigation.
The recording scandal is also further reason for the Board of Supervisors to conduct a complete and public audit of the Sheriff’s Office, a demand the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has been making for over a year. Over the last decade, Sheriff Ahern’s budget has grown by $144 million — hitting an incredible $443 million this year — despite a daily jail population that has dropped by 45 percent.
This enormous expenditure has translated to more deaths and abuse rather than a better-run department.
Since 2015, 41 lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Office have cost $15.5 million for civil rights violations that include a string of in-custody deaths and abuse of prisoners.
There have been 33 in-custody deaths since 2013, and in June two prisoners died at the Santa Rita Jail in three days. That includes the death of Dujuan Armstrong, whose family still has not received an explanation from the Sheriff’s Office.
Moreover, recent reports have detailed how county prisoners are malnourished and provided inadequate healthcare. In one 2010 case, a man arrested for jaywalking and a prior warrant for DUI died in Santa Rita while suffering from alcohol withdrawal.
Sheriff Ahern has also been complicit in the Trump administration’s draconian and racist anti-immigrant policies, facilitating ICE detentions by publishing the release dates of undocumented prisoners and allowing ICE access to non-public areas of county jails.
A full audit — and the transparency it would create — is the first step toward real accountability. In a county that prides itself on its progressive politics, and in a state known as a leader in criminal justice reform, the public deserves to know how the sheriff is using public funds to fuel inhumane law enforcement that flouts the law and basic decency.
Jose Bernal is an organizer and advocate at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland.
