Sonoma County Sheriff Agrees To New Training

By Jeremy Hay, Bay City News Service

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Responding to the recommendations of a county watchdog agency, Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick has agreed to put in place a new de-escalation policy, greatly expand training for implicit bias and crisis intervention, and investigate dispatch training and practices.

The recommendations were made by the county's Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach, or IOLERO, and presented to county supervisors Tuesday as part of its annual report.

The recommendations arose from 12 cases that IOLERO audited between June 2019 and July 2020. IOLERO Director Karlene Navarro said those audits highlighted issues that included communication problems with dispatchers, incomplete internal affairs investigations, and ongoing problems related to de-escalation, or reducing the likelihood that encounters between deputies and the public lead to use of force.

In its format, the report is somewhat like the echo of a conversation, in which Navarro explains her audits and how she arrived at the recommendations that arose from them, while the Sheriff's Office's responses and reasoning appear alongside.

Navarro said in the report that the audit policy had "produced unprecedented changes to Sheriff's Office policies."

The core recommendations were related to Navarro's audit of the case of David Ward, who was killed Nov. 27, 2019 by deputies after a vehicle pursuit. Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputy Charles Blount tried to restrain Ward using a carotid restraint, which left Ward unconscious. The 52-year-old Ward died shortly after in the hospital. When he was pulled over Ward was driving his own car, which had earlier been reported stolen.

Essick initiated the process of firing Blount, but the deputy resigned before it was concluded.

Navarro at the time asked Essick to issue a temporary ban on the use of the carotid hold; IOLERO's community advisory council then asked for a permanent ban. The sheriff declined, saying deputies might instead have to use potentially more dangerous methods to restrain suspects. But in June, amid nationwide protests over the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on Floyd's neck until he died, Essick banned use of the hold.

The audit of the Ward case, Navarro told supervisors, led to three recommendations that Essick accepted. He agreed to create and implement a new de-escalation policy; to increase crisis intervention training and also training to understand and counter implicit bias; and to investigate dispatch practices; in Ward's and other cases audited, Navarro said, dispatchers had relayed incomplete or inaccurate information to deputies. Essick did not agree to overhaul the department's vehicle pursuit policies, which Navarro had also recommended.

The changes are substantial. For example, the Sheriff's Office currently provides the required state minimum of implicit bias training, two hours every five years, and crisis intervention training, 32 hours total over a lifetime. Under the new rules, deputies will be required to take implicit bias training four times a year in addition to the minimum training; crisis intervention training will now be required four times a year in addition to the minimum standard.

Supervisor Shirlee Zane applauded the developments, saying that not only were they necessary but deputies had expressed a desire for them.

"It needs to happen ASAP," she said. "It is so essential to give our law enforcement officers the training that they not only need but have asked for."

In most areas, including in firearms, driver training and defensive tactics, Navarro noted, deputies are already given training exceeding the minimum.

Essick, who has had a prickly relationship with supervisors, did not speak at the meeting because he was not invited in time.

"We did not connect the dots and we did not put forward an invitation on a timely basis," Assistant County Administrator Christina Rivera told supervisors.

In a statement, Essick said: "Unfortunately, we couldn't attend today's Board hearing due to the late invitation. The IOLERO Annual Report shows the collaborative relationship between IOLERO and the Sheriff's Office. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to work with Director Navarro and have our comments included in the report. We look forward to continuing to work with Director Navarro in the future."

At the same time, the first-term sheriff has indicated he will challenge, if it passes, a measure that supervisors placed on the Nov. 3 ballot that would substantially add to IOLERO's investigative powers. Measure P would give the office increased access to personnel records and camera footage from body cameras, among other new abilities. Essick has said the measure is legally unsound and would make it difficult for him to do his job as sheriff. The measure also would set the oversight office's budget at 1 percent of the Sheriff's Office's.

The oversight office's budget current annual budget is $1.3 million, while the Sheriff's Office has a budget of about $194 million. The successful passage of the measure would add roughly $1.9 million to the IOLERO budget this year under that formula.

Supervisor David Rabbitt saluted sheriff's deputies and suggested the changes would be received well.

"My hat's off to those who are out there trying to do the right thing and protect and serve and take care of property and everything else in this day and age," Rabbitt said. "I think they are ultimate professionals who are going to want to continue to improve their performance and how they do their work going forward."

Essick also agreed to implement a new policy governing how people who are arrested are transported to jail, and a number of changes to policies that govern when jail staff report arrested undocumented immigrants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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