Sheriff Blames One Deputy for Most of Inmate Harassment

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block on Tuesday denied allegations in a Civil Service hearing officer’s report that numerous deputies assigned to the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic systematically harassed inmates in 1985.

Block said one deputy, Brent P. Talmo, who was fired by the Sheriff’s Department last year, was the primary culprit. The sheriff drew a distinction between Talmo’s behavior--which allegedly ranged from placing a dead gopher in a prisoner’s pocket to turning over the bunk of another sleeping inmate--and widespread “horseplay” among other jailers.

Block made his comments at a news conference in response to the findings of a 12-day Civil Service hearing that reviewed Talmo’s firing. Hearing Officer Karen Orren, concluding that jailers at the 1,800-inmate, medium-security complex at the Pitchess facility were poorly supervised, recommended that Talmo’s firing be reduced to a 90-day suspension.

Orren’s report found that Talmo and other deputies regularly conducted improper “search-and-destroy missions” in 1985, forcing inmates to wait outside their barracks, sometimes without jackets in cold weather, while they destroyed inmates’ property and county-owned bedding in an effort to coerce prisoners into cooperating. Several deputies told the hearing that their supervisors were aware of these “missions.”

Block said Tuesday that he will file a formal objection today with the county Civil Service Commission asking that it reject Orren’s recommendation. If he loses on that front, Block said, he will probably file a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking to have the firing upheld.

Block said he believes Talmo’s conduct was considerably worse than that of other deputies. In addition, no matter what others may have done, “I find it totally improper” for Talmo, now relieved of duty, to return to the department, he said.

Informed of Block’s remarks, Talmo’s attorney, Jerome M. Applebaum, said: “I think it is inappropriate for Mr. Talmo and me to comment. We do know that what the hearing officer said is in conflict with what Mr. Block says.”

The sheriff said he is concerned about the contention that several jail supervisors knew about misconduct among jailers and failed to do anything about it. He said he has initiated a departmental investigation into that issue.

Block said harassment of prisoners and horseplay between deputies at Pitchess largely ended in the fall of 1985 after a captain wrote a disapproving memorandum to all personnel at the three facilities there, which together house nearly 5,000 inmates.

“I can assure you it is not continuing,” he told reporters. Orren’s report acknowledged that “there has recently been a curbing” of such practices.

Reports of misconduct among jailers began surfacing in the fall of 1985 after Talmo was suspended for two days “for handcuffing a prisoner to a fence and forgetting about him,” Block said.

“After that, people began coming forward” with more extensive allegations of wrongdoing by the deputy, he said.