Yes, Another Christopher Commission

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors should immediately do what the city did in the Rodney King case: form a blue-ribbon commission to investigate a police force. This time the police are in the Sheriff’s Department and the incident involves a Latino victim who was shot and killed. But the issues--racism and use of force--are the same.

The probe must cover recruitment, hiring, training, shooting policies, use of other force, community relations, discipline and overall administration policies and practices. In other words, this investigation must have the breadth and depth of the Christopher Commission’s.

The Sheriff’s Department does not have even the most modest civilian oversight, such as the Los Angeles Police Commission, and the lax attitude of Sheriff Sherman Block suggests that such shootings are accepted as business as usual. He has said (in a 1990 interview) that his department has no formal, written review of officer-involved shootings and that he does not know how many such shootings have been judged in violation of department policy.

It may seem unfair to expect the newest of the county supervisors, Gloria Molina, to lead the charge on this issue. But as the supervisor for the First District, where Ramona Gardens is located and where Arturo Jimenez was slain, it’s up to Molina to open the door for public hearings on the Sheriff’s Department.