Acrimony Abundant in Lively 4th Debate

With just 18 days remaining until Los Angeles County voters choose a sheriff, the race for America’s highest-paid elective office has taken on all the accouterments of an old-fashioned, down-in-the-mud, big city dogfight.

In their fourth debate, which was videotaped Thursday at KCBS-TV Channel 2 and will air Sunday, four-time incumbent Sheriff Sherman Block and his challenger, former sheriff division chief Lee Baca, were so vociferous in their attacks that one veteran political reporter in the audience murmured, “I hope they left their guns outside.”

The two men, who once were so close that Baca called Block his “mentor”--did not speak as they entered the Hollywood TV studio, and refused to be interviewed together afterward.

Block, who is 74 and on dialysis for a chronic kidney ailment, told reporters after the debate that if he had been opposed by any member of the department’s command staff other than Baca, he would not have sought reelection.

For his part, Baca accused the sheriff of character assassination for putting out a series of news releases titled “Lee Baca: Too Erratic to Trust.”

“I’ve seen those releases,” Baca said after the debate. “It’s nothing more than mudslinging. Mr. Block has taken every opportunity to denigrate my achievements.”

Outside the debating arena, the campaign has become equally intense.

In recent days, the Block campaign has mustered whatever ammunition it could to display the incumbent’s superior clout with local politicians and labor organizations.

On Tuesday, the chiefs and assistant chiefs of police in 24 cities across the county lined up at a microphone in the office of the union representing Sheriff’s Department middle managers, one by one expressing their support for Block.

The only catch: The group, the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Assn., had actually endorsed Block months before. This event was simply to attract media coverage and reiterate that endorsement.

Baca supporters within the ranks of deputies, meanwhile, have mounted an informal campaign to complain that their union, the Assn. for Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriffs, endorsed Block with much fanfare last month.

The disgruntled deputies say they were not allowed to cast ballots on the endorsement and point to an earlier vote, taken during the primary, in which Block came in third, behind onetime candidate Patrick Gomez and Baca.

The union’s president, Pete Brodie, refused to comment on the allegations, but spokesman Jeff Monical said the board of directors consulted informally with the shop stewards--known as unit representatives--before making the decision.

He said the union has a long-standing policy of endorsing incumbents.

During Thursday’s debate, the challenger called for a full audit of the department under Block and said that a Baca administration would be “proactive” and forward-looking.

As he spoke, Baca clutched a coffee cup, his hands trembling slightly as he raised it to his lips, his body stiff. But it was clear that, whether propelled by anger at Block’s attacks or simply by good coaching, this was not the self-effacing Baca of previous debates.

“This race is about failed leadership,” he said. “If you are looking for the status quo, you know where to go.”

The retired division chief blamed Block for conditions ranging from overcrowding in the jails to a crucial lack of staffing.

Block came to the debate armed with detailed information about his opponent. At one point, KCBS political editor Linda Breakstone asked Baca, who twice applied to become chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, why he blamed his rejection on racism.

Baca denied doing so, but Block provided the date of Baca’s statement and a quote from it.

“I can tell you exactly what he said,” the sheriff declared, breaking into the conversation and shuffling a pile of paperwork that he had brought onto the set. He then accused Baca, a Mexican American, of attempting to play the race card when he failed to get the LAPD job.

The two also tussled over a question that has dogged the campaign since spring, when Baca reportedly offered Block a job and a series of perks if he would step aside and push the Board of Supervisors to appoint the challenger in his place.

Block again accused Baca of impropriety in making the offer. Baca once more hedged on exactly what type of deal he had suggested, and produced a newspaper story from the early 1980s describing how former Sheriff Peter Pitchess passed the baton to his then-subordinate Block a year before the next scheduled election.

After the debate, the two candidates left separately, one remaining in the television station while the other spoke with the media. As when they entered, they did not speak to or even look at each other.

Clustered outside the door, among the reporters seeking final words from each candidate, were representatives from both campaigns, offering advice to their clients and spin to the gathered media as they eavesdropped on the opposition’s statements.

“That,” commented a high-ranking official in one campaign after everybody had gone home, “was quite a circus.”