W. Hollywood to Recruit Gay Deputies for Sheriff’s Dept.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has tentatively agreed to allow West Hollywood to help recruit new sheriff’s deputies with the tacit aim of increasing the number of gays in its ranks.

City Manager Paul Brotzman said that details have yet to be worked out but that the city probably will advertise in gay publications and do other recruiting through gay community groups.

“They’re looking for as many candidates as they can find, whether they’re gay or straight, black or white, or whatever,” Brotzman said.

But officials in West Hollywood, which pays the Sheriff’s Department $8.5 million a year for police services, have made no secret of the fact that the city’s interest in the plan hinges on the recruitment of gays.

Accord Reached in Private

Sheriff’s Department officials declined to comment on the tentative agreement, which was reached in a private meeting earlier this month between representatives of the department and the city.

A spokesman for Sheriff Sherman Block, who did not attend the meeting, said the sheriff would have nothing to say about the matter until he meets personally with West Hollywood officials. Such a meeting is to be held Thursday.

If the arrangement with West Hollywood is carried out, it would be the first time the Sheriff’s Department has sought help in recruiting from any of the 37 cities it provides with protection.

Sheriff’s officials have long insisted that they do not discriminate against any group when hiring. Although they acknowledge that there are gays and lesbians among the department’s more than 7,000 deputies, they say they know of none who have made their sexual orientation public. Gay activists complain that the environment within the department is such that gay deputies cannot be open about their sexuality out of fear of being harassed.

Big Gay Population

About 120 deputies are assigned to West Hollywood, where an estimated 35% of the population of 37,000 is gay.

The agreement with the city is a compromise worked out after local officials first asked that the Sheriff’s Department itself openly recruit gays and lesbians similarly to the way it recruits racial and ethnic minorities.

While West Hollywood officials have praised the Sheriff’s Department for its crime-fighting abilities, gays have frequently complained before the City Council of being harassed by deputies.

Two of the five City Council members have said that they may vote against renewing the city’s contract with the Sheriff’s Department, which expires next year, unless steps are taken to hire acknowledged gays and lesbians.

Community activists were upset recently with the disclosure that of 22 formal complaints of ill treatment by sheriff’s deputies filed with West Hollywood last year--including what one official said was a “substantial” number involving gays--all but one was ruled by the Sheriff’s Department to be unsubstantiated.

The disclosure followed two recent incidents that caused friction between the Sheriff’s Department and city officials.

Councilman Steve Schulte complained that the arrest of a stockbroker and another man in a park for lewd conduct violated an “unwritten agreement,” established in 1984, that plainclothes deputies would not be used to make such arrests.

Capt. Rachel Burgess, who recently was placed in charge of the West Hollywood sheriff’s station, said she was unsure that such a policy ever existed. She defended the arrests, citing citizen complaints about sex acts in the park.

In the other incident, a West Hollywood hairdresser accused deputies of abandoning him rather than taking him to a hospital after he and a companion were attacked by “gay-bashers” on the street.

Deputies said the men refused help, and Burgess said the deputies “acted appropriately.”

Cmdr. Bill Baker, who supervises several sheriff’s stations, including the one in West Hollywood, dismissed the idea that the department has problems dealing with the gay community.

“If there is the perception that there is a problem, I think that’s all there is, a perception,” he said.

In recent years, recruitment teams of sheriff’s deputies have gone to crowded Los Angeles beaches to solicit applicants, particularly women, while other specialized teams have gone into black, Latino and Asian communities.

In addition, Sheriff Block has complained that there is an overall shortage of qualified applicants for deputy jobs, noting that about 50% of those applying fail a three-hour written exam while others are eliminated because of admitted drug use. Applicants also are subject to interviews and background checks.

Last summer, Block announced that the department was liberalizing hiring standards by accepting some non-U.S. citizens--legal resident aliens who have applied for citizenship--and lowering the minimum age from 21 to 20.

In addition to requesting the recruitment of gays, West Hollywood officials want the Sheriff’s Department to issue “policy assurances” that harassment of gay deputies will not be tolerated should they choose to make their sexual orientation known.