Sheriff Block Dies; His Campaign Still On, Backers Say

Sheriff Sherman Block, who led the nation’s largest county law enforcement agency for almost 17 years, died Thursday night at USC University Hospital, three days after surgery to remove a massive blood clot from his brain. He was 74.

The sheriff--locked in a hotly contested battle for reelection against challenger Lee Baca, a former sheriff’s chief who had made the incumbent’s health a campaign issue--was pronounced dead at 7:52 p.m., according to his department’s spokeswoman. The cause of death, she said, was a massive and continuing brain hemorrhage.

Despite Block’s death, the effort to reelect him to a fifth term as sheriff of Los Angeles County will continue, his supporters said late Thursday. If Block wins the election, the county Board of Supervisors will choose his successor. In the interim, Undersheriff Jerry Harper legally serves in Block’s stead.

“The sheriff made it clear to me last Sunday that he wanted the campaign to continue no matter what happened,” said Jay Grodin, chairman of Block’s campaign committee. “The sheriff remains on the ballot. The campaign continues forward.”

Baca, who suspended campaigning upon news of Block’s illness, does not plan to step up his activity despite knowing that the late sheriff’s aides have vowed to fight on, according to the challenger’s campaign manager, Jorge Flores.

“Certainly voters are going to know that one of the names on the ballots has passed away,” Flores said. “I’m not convinced they’re going to want to vote for someone who’s passed away.”

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime political ally of the sheriff, did not want to talk about the continuing Block campaign Thursday night. Instead, Yaroslavsky mourned the death of his close friend, calling it “a loss to the department, a loss to those of us who had the privilege of knowing and working with him and a loss to to the people of Los Angeles County. . . .

“He was a tough but compassionate cop and a devoted public servant who managed his office and conducted himself with honor and integrity at all times,” Yaroslavsky said.

Before his final illness, Block had survived two bouts with cancer and suffered from kidney failure, requiring him to undergo dialysis treatments three times a week.

The blood clot removed Monday was the result of a brain hemorrhage that apparently resulted from his kidney problems, doctors said.

The clot blocked the flow of blood to part of his brain and caused him to fall Saturday in his West Hills home. After the fall, he complained of dizziness and disorientation. After treatment at an emergency room near his home, he was transferred to the neurology unit at University Hospital, where his condition continued to worsen.

An examination revealed that the clot was the size of a golf ball and was lodged in the connective tissue between the hemispheres of his brain. Most of the clot was removed during a four-hour operation Monday, but doctors cautioned that Block remained in serious condition, unable to speak.

“There was a sudden and rapid deterioration of his condition late this afternoon,” Natalie Macias, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department, said Thursday night.

Backers Promised to Fight On

Grodin’s announcement that the Block reelection campaign would continue might seem strange to some, but it came as no surprise in political circles.

Throughout the ailing sheriff’s ordeal, his supporters and close associates promised to fight on.

On Tuesday, eight members of the region’s political establishment--including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Supervisors Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--gathered to raise money for Block and to urge voters to support him, no matter what.

For the group of true believers close to the sheriff, carrying on means fulfilling a personal commitment to a man they couldn’t quite believe might die--a man who already had beaten back cancer twice and learned to live with severe kidney disease.

There are, moreover, powerful political reasons for Block’s supporters to push on.

Should Block win the election in death, the power to name a sheriff passes from the electorate to the Board of Supervisors. By most accounts, the supervisors are disinclined to appoint Baca.

Rather, the supervisors are more likely to name someone within the current command structure, such as Assistant Sheriff Mike Graham. A choice within the current chain of command means that many of Block’s top lieutenants will keep their jobs, and it means that someone already entrenched in the political and fund-raising circles of local politicians will carry on as sheriff.

If the supervisors decide to go outside the Sheriff’s Department for Block’s successor, the most widely discussed candidate is former Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Mark Kroeker.

But efforts to win voters to the “anybody-but-Baca” cause may be difficult at this point.

Even before Block got sick, those closest to him knew that his campaign for a fifth term as Los Angeles County’s highest law enforcement official was in trouble.

Baca had consistently beaten the incumbent in fund-raising since the beginning of the year. He had pushed Block into an unprecedented runoff and, according to a poll commissioned by Block’s own campaign just last month, was edging the incumbent sheriff by 3 percentage points.

Block’s illness was believed to have pushed his numbers down further.

“My God,” a weary campaign staffer said after Block was stricken this week, “that’s it.”

Indeed, Block’s opponents claim that polls conducted over several nights this week show that a significant numbers of voters, uncomfortable with the idea of voting for a seriously ill candidate, already had gone over to Baca.

A source in the Baca camp said that as of Wednesday night, more than 50% of respondents said they would vote for Baca over Block, with the sheriff pulling in 33% of those polled and the rest undecided.

Thursday, however, Baca urged both sides in the campaign to put aside their differences as they mourned the fallen Block.

“Sherman Block was a giant in the law enforcement family,” Baca said. “His dedication and commitment to his profession were unparalleled.”

Flores said the Baca camp plans to continue maintaining a low profile during the last few days before the election.

He said the challenger will continue to run radio ads that make no mention of Block, and he said volunteers will continue to distribute literature.

But with urging from Block’s family and friends, his campaign is soldiering on, taking an odd comfort in the blitz of publicity surrounding the sheriff’s illness, and now death, as if that could summon the extra votes needed to pull off a victory.

Taking a page from the recommendation of its pollster, who said that respondents would shift their votes to Block if negative things were known about Baca, Block’s consultants continue to press forward with the idea that the retired chief is not fit to replace the longtime sheriff--even if he is dead.

“It’s a bizarre, unprecedented dynamic,” said Joseph Scott, Block’s longtime campaign spokesman.

“The conventional wisdom in sophisticated political circles is that unless lightning strikes, Baca wins,” Scott said. “But I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”

Tributes Pour In

Tribute for Block poured in from government officials and politicians Thursday night.

“Sherman Block was a man of honor and integrity [who] devoted his life to his community,” said County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. “He was respected by people of all colors and creeds. Sherm was a man devoted to God, his family and his community.”

Feinstein described herself as an “unabashed fan of Sherman Block. . . . I had the pleasure to work with this great sheriff, whose integrity and credibility I will not soon forget,” Feinstein said. Block was “a man of honor . . . who touched lives, made our communities safer and kept a lot of good kids on the straight and narrow,” Supervisor Don Knabe said. “He has set a high standard for those that will come after him, and has left a proud legacy.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said he found it “hard to put into words the loss that Sheriff Block means to us. . . .

“Many of the programs he initiated will go on forever. On behalf of the Los Angeles Police Department we send our condolences to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.”

* A LONG CAREER: Former deli counterman faced departmental controversies in later terms. A24