At the end of Tuesday’s Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Jose Medina started his final comments thanking those who spoke during the meeting, especially the 11 who spoke about the recently released grand jury report calling for independent oversight of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office (RSO). The report was one of three focused on sheriff oversight.
“After a decade of recorded deaths in county jails, the community deserves transparency through oversight,” Medina said at the June 23 meeting. “I found the report to be professional, dispassionate and apolitical. I could not think of a more professional, thorough report than what the grand jury produced on May 7 and made public.”
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Last July, Medina put forward a recommendation that the board create an ad hoc committee to consider the logistics of forming an independent oversight committee and inspector general in an effort to increase transparency, efficiency and trust in the sheriff’s department. The motion died for lack of a second.
“As we approach that one year mark, I want to, for the public record, put out that I, working with my colleagues, intend to revisit that decision,” Medina said. “And, taking the grand jury report as a starting point, bring back to the Board of Supervisors that we take very seriously what is inside the grand jury report and that before July 29 I will bring that forward working with my colleagues.”
Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said he looked forward to “furthering the conversation,” but said that it needed to happen in collaboration with the community, the county and the sheriff’s deputies.
“That’s the only way we’re going to bring balance, and we’ve got to make sure that we have a discussion between all the entities,” he said. “Yes, we definitely do need an oversight committee, but what does that look like?”
The supervisors’ comments followed a series of public speakers who called on the board to take action in light of the newly released report.
“When we came to you a year ago, you said more research was needed before an oversight commission could be created,” said Rabbi Suzanne Singer, a member of community group Riverside Sheriff Accountability Coalition (RSAC). “That research has now been done by the civil grand jury, which recommends the creation of such a body for accountability and transparency.”
Prior to the meeting, RSAC held a press conference on the steps of the Riverside County Administrative Center, publicly calling on the supervisors to take action.
“The grand jury has done its work,” said Anthony Noriega, director of District 5 of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). “Facts are known, the recommendations are clear, and the path forward is clear. What is missing is the fortitude and the courage of the Board of Supervisors to act.”
Calls for oversight of the department have grown following what the grand jury called an “alarming number” of in-custody deaths.
Data obtained from the California Department of Justice’s Open Justice data portal show there were 262 reported in-custody deaths between 2011 and 2024 in Riverside County. That number includes people who died while incarcerated in a Riverside County jail as well as during the process of arrest or at crime/arrest scenes.
More recent data has not been posted by the state, and information regarding in-custody deaths provided on the sheriff’s website only includes those who have died while incarcerated in a Riverside County jail.
As part of its report, the grand jury recommended the establishment of an independent civilian oversight body, the retention of an independent correctional health and custodial operations expert for the sheriff’s department, the creation of a publicly accessible quarterly reporting dashboard, the publication of a five-year strategic plan for jail operations, the adoption of a countywide oversight and accountability framework and National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement’s best-practice standards and the implementation of independent oversight of all RSO operations within 18 months.
The grand jury also recommended the dissolution of the current Sheriff’s Advisory Committee within a year and the independent review of all in-custody deaths and critical incidents within 18 months of the creation of an independent oversight committee.
Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a statement to The Riverside Record that the majority of the grand jury’s report was “inaccurate or simply false, and was obviously intentionally crafted to come up with the desired recommendation.”
He also called the issue of in-custody deaths a “non-existent problem.”
“Going to jail does not prevent anyone from dying,” he said. “No one has died because they were in jail, they died while they were in jail. Our jail deaths are from fentanyl, suicide, natural causes and, unfortunately, murder.”
Bianco said his office would provide its required response to the grand jury as soon as possible, but would not be implementing any of its recommendations.
Lisa Matus, a member of RSAC whose son Richard Matus Jr. died while in custody at the Cois Byrd Detention Center in August 2022, said Bianco’s statements should alarm the county while challenging the board to take action.
“Will they agree with Sheriff Bianco that this report is nothing more than politics, lies, anti-law enforcement or will they listen to the grand jury, the evidence and the families who have been sounding the alarm for years,” she said. “If the board does not act now, the public will have its answer.”
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