COUNTYWIDE : Independent Officer Urged by NAACP
The Ventura County branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has backed a demand by black sheriff’s deputies and firefighters for an independent affirmative action officer to monitor the two county departments.
It is difficult for a person to investigate a departmental problem when he works for the department, NAACP President John R. Hatcher III said in an April 19 letter to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.
“You can’t have the fox watching the henhouse,” Hatcher said in the letter.
Black deputies and firefighters appeared before the supervisors in March and urged them to appoint an independent officer. The Sheriff’s Department subsequently formed a minority relations committee headed by Lt. Dante Honorico, the department’s highest-ranking Filipino officer.
But deputies called the response inadequate.
A former deputy filed a civil rights lawsuit against the department in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles last week. Additionally, 11 of 15 black deputies and a black jail employee have filed claims against the county alleging racist acts.
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