President Seeks to Reassure L.A. Deputy Sheriffs

President Bush, taking the unusual step of injecting the prestige of the White House into a local legal issue, sought Thursday to boost the morale of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in the wake of the corruption indictment of 10 deputies, telling local law enforcement officers, “Don’t let it get you down.”

With Sheriff Sherman Block sitting at his side, Bush raised the issue of the indictments at a ceremony in Castaic dedicating the new North County Correctional Facility, completed after five years of construction at a cost of $134 million in state and local funds.

For the President, who spent the day in the Los Angeles area, the dedication of the maximum-security jail provided a picture-perfect opportunity to hammer away at his message of support for law enforcement. Bush treated the indictments last week as just a bump in the road.

“I know there have been difficulties. I’ve read the papers and I’ve seen the stories this past week about the indictments here,” he said. “Don’t let it get you down. Yours is the largest Sheriff’s Department in the world--11,000 people fighting the good fight. Keep your heads high.

“If some bad apple turns up--if an officer abuses your trust or ours by doing wrong--we must be that much more dedicated to supporting the countless officers, the millions across this country who honor the law by doing what is right.”

The 10 deputies--including all nine members of an elite anti-drug team, and the wife of a deputy--were indicted on a variety of federal charges, among them allegations of stealing $1.4 million in drug money, money laundering and filing of false tax returns.

Block, 65, announced Wednesday that he has taken steps to prevent future drug-related problems in the department. Top officers, including Block, will now undergo periodic drug testing and some members of the department will have to file financial disclosure statements so the department can keep a closer watch on their assets.

Appointed sheriff in 1982 and elected since to two four-year-terms, Block is running for reelection, and has said he does not believe the controversy will affect his chances.

The maximum-security jail--its creamy earth tones giving it the appearance of a rock-solid cup of cafe au lait deposited in the incongruous setting of 34 acres on the rolling hillsides of Castaic--has been built to house 2,064 inmates being held before trial. It is intended for those charged with murder, rape, armed robbery and other violent crimes. Those sentenced would be sent to state prisons.

The facility was scheduled to open last spring, but the opening was delayed when some of its high-tech flourishes turned into glitches: Among other problems, the computer-controlled doors malfunctioned. The first inmates are now expected to arrive on Thursday of next week.

On the President’s brief tour of the facility, which still awaits its first inmates, he viewed a series of cells equipped with stainless steel toilets and cots with thin mats, and the guards’ control center.

Later, before an audience of several hundred law enforcement officers and civic employees from throughout the county, Bush said the visit had made an impression.

“I’ll tell you--it does concentrate the mind,” he said of the facility he dubbed “Super Max.”

“Jails and prisons do testify to something in the nature of man that most people put aside--prefer not to think about: the capacity for violence, the power of corruption, the ability to turn our back on what’s right--and do wrong. But they are also the ultimate proof of the community’s determination to protect itself and serve justice,” he said.

The President emphasized that the construction costs were met entirely from California resources, “every penny produced by state and local funding.”

“That’s a sign that your vibrant community, the Los Angeles community, the Los Angeles taxpayer, knows that in the fight against crime and drugs, tough talk is simply not enough,” Bush said.

It was also a sign of the federal budget crunch, and the reluctance of the Administration to contribute to the construction of local prisons to house those convicted on state charges.

As for the contributions of the federal government, he said, “this year alone over $1.5 billion will be devoted to prison construction to build over 24,000 new beds.”

Later in the day, Bush attended a private luncheon with contributors to the Republican Governors’ Assn., with the approximately $500,000 expected to have been raised at the $25,000-a-couple meal being devoted to Republican gubernatorial races.

Bush also met for 45 minutes with former President Ronald Reagan, at Reagan’s office in the Fox Plaza Building, and in the evening he addressed the 100th anniversary dinner of the California Chamber of Commerce at the Century Plaza.