Block Names Assistant to Position of Undersheriff : Law enforcement: Jerry Harper will assume the title after Robert Edmonds retires at the end of March. The sheriff also announces other promotions.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block on Wednesday named Assistant Sheriff Jerry Harper, a 31-year law enforcement veteran, to replace retiring Undersheriff Robert A. Edmonds. That could put Harper first in line to succeed Block when he retires.

Harper, 51, will take over when Edmonds leaves at the end of March.

Harper was the Sheriff Department’s chief planner for security for the 1984 Olympics and saw duty during the 1965 Watts riots and during last year’s rioting. He served as a division chief in East Los Angeles in 1970 and during anti-Iranian disturbances in Beverly Hills in 1979, and has been a riot-control instructor for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police.

Harper said he was “delighted to have been selected.” He added that if he could “do anywhere near the job Edmonds has done, I will be extremely pleased.”

Edmonds decided to retire, giving up aspirations to succeed Block, after the 68-year-old Block announced plans to seek reelection to a fourth term next year. The undersheriff is second in command to Block.

Although sheriff is an elected position, retiring Los Angeles County sheriffs often have been succeeded by their undersheriffs. Block held the job of undersheriff when his predecessor, Peter Pitchess, retired. He was given an interim appointment to the post by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and then was elected at the next general election.

Block named Robert J. Ciulik, chief of the department’s detective division, to succeed Harper as one of two assistant sheriffs. Ramon Morris is the other assistant sheriff.

Ciulik is a 32-year department veteran who has specialized in investigations and jail direction. He has headed the narcotics and vice bureaus.

Block said Ciulik will take over direction of the county’s jail system, which houses about 21,500 prisoners. The jails have been plagued in recent months by fights between black and Latino inmates.

Also winning a promotion Wednesday was Buford E. Smith, a 31-year veteran and area commander of field operations, who will become a division chief in charge of technical services.