Brad Gates Names New Chief of Jails, Assistant Sheriff

Wyatt Hart, former press liaison for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, has been promoted to commander of the county’s jails, it was announced Wednesday.

Sheriff Brad Gates’ office also announced the promotion of Jerry Krans to assistant sheriff in charge of the department’s corrections division.

Hart, who has been in charge of security at John Wayne Airport since 1984, was promoted from lieutenant to captain when he as sumed his new duties on Friday. He will be in charge of what has been a public relations sore spot for Gates: a jail system that, because of crowded conditions, has been under attack by the courts and American Civil Liberties Union.

The promotions follow the retirement last month of Assistant Sheriff Thad Dwyer, who had been in charge of the corrections division. Dwyer left to assume a security job with the state’s Lottery Commission.

Krans, promoted from captain, replaces Dwyer. Krans, who begins his 20th year with the department on Oct. 1, has worked with all the major divisions, including about six years as jail commander.

Krans’ last assignment was to oversee development of the new Inmate Reception Center under construction at the Main Jail at 550 N. Flower St. in Santa Ana. Those duties will now be filled by Capt. George R. King, a 21-year veteran of the department, who is being transferred from the post of jail commander after 3 1/2 years.

Gates was out of town Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.

Hart said Wednesday he is aware of the problems encountered by the sheriff and county Board of Supervisors because of the crowded conditions at the Main Jail. But many of the programs implemented to alleviate crowded conditions have already been set in motion.

“He (King) did an outstanding job,” Hart said. “He’s gone through a lot of the lawsuits and the tremendous growth in the jail population. I’ve come into a very smooth-running operation.”

Problems with jail crowding came to a head on March 18, when U.S. District Judge William P. Gray found supervisors and Gates in criminal contempt for failing to comply with his 7-year-old order to trim the inmate population, an order that stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

Gray fined the county $50,000 and $10 per day for each inmate forced to sleep on the floor after his first night. At the time Gray issued the order, about 500 of the 2,000 prisoners were sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

Several steps have since been implemented to reduce crowding, including transferring minimum-security inmates to the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange and the James A. Musick Honor Farm in El Toro. The current jail population is about 1,400, the lowest it has been since the 1970s.

The county also is planning to expand both branch jails and a site selection committee is examining several locations for a new facility.

The job carries a “tremendous responsibility,” Hart said. It is also a tenfold increase in the amount of men under his command. As head of airport security, Hart was responsible for about 40 men. As jail commander, he is in charge of about 400 employees.

“There’s a lot of responsibility in this job,” he said. “You’re responsible to the citizens, the inmates. You’ve got the courts, and you’ve got the media. You have to take into account not only community safety but the safety of the inmates.”

Hart is actually returning for a second tour of duty in the jail. Before serving five years as the department’s press relations officer, Hart served as a sergeant at the Main Jail for two years. He has been with the department for 17 years and before that was employed for three years with the Lompoc Police Department.

Krans, whom Hart calls “one of the most innovative and progressive” corrections professionals in the country, is a recipient of the Personal Achievement Award from the California Police Officers Assn. He has been active on the Detention and Corrections Committee of the California Peace Officers Assn. and has been chairman of several state Department of Corrections committees dealing with minimum standards for jails.