Chairman Todd Spitzer Calls Special Board of Supervisors Hearing on Public Safety Oversight

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1 TODD SPITZER SUPERVISOR, THIRD DISTRICT CHAIRMAN, ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ORANGE COUNTY HALL OF ADMINISTRATION 333 W. SANTA ANA BLVD., SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA PHONE (714) FAX (714) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 20, 2015 Phone: (714) CONTACT: Melanie Eustice, Communications Director Chairman Todd Spitzer Calls Special Board of Supervisors Hearing on Public Safety Oversight (Santa Ana, CA) Orange County Board of Supervisor, Chairman Todd Spitzer called a Special Board Hearing on adopting a new public safety oversight model. The hearing will allow the Board of Supervisors to receive testimony, hold discussion and analyze various oversight models including the Office of Independent Review. Oversight of law enforcement in Orange County is not working, said Chairman Spitzer. I found out more about law enforcement incidents from the newspaper than from the Office of Independent Review, Chairman Todd Spitzer said. In order to get a model that actually provides oversight, we have to start over. A prominent group of distinguished presenters will discuss options with the Board of Supervisors. Merrick Bobb, Executive Director of the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) has agreed to present an overview of the successes that he had in providing oversight and transparency to various law enforcement agencies including those in Los Angeles County. Additional speakers include: Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Sandra Hutchens 1

2 Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California, Irvine s School of Law Tom Dominguez, President of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS) Brian Buchner, President of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) Michael Gennaco, Principal at OIR Group The contract for the current Office of Independent Review (OIR) expires at the end of August. The Board expressed its intention to not renew the contract for the current provider and expressed interest selecting a different model that allows for true oversight and transparency of law enforcement. The Orange County Office of Independent Review was established by the Board of Supervisors in 2008 to monitor, assist, oversee and advise the Orange County Sheriff- Coroner Department in its handling of critical incidents and allegations of employee misconduct. The special hearing will be held on Friday, July 24 from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm in the Board Chambers at 333 W. Santa Ana Blvd. in Santa Ana. The meeting is open to the community and will provide a time for public comments. ### 1. Biographies and photos of speakers 2

3 Sandra Hutchens was sworn in as the 12th Sheriff-Coroner for Orange County in June of She began her law enforcement career with the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department in With more than thirty-five years of service in law enforcement, Sheriff Hutchens possesses invaluable experience in nearly every facet of law enforcement. Sheriff Hutchens leads more than 3,800 sworn and professional men and women who serve in areas as diverse as Patrol Operations, Criminal and Special Investigations, the County s Crime Lab and Courts, Coroner s Office, as well as those who serve in Orange County s five jails that collectively comprise the eighth largest jail system in the nation. The department provides a variety of vital public safety services to our communities. These include direct patrol services to more than 700,000 residents within the county s unincorporated areas and via contract to thirteen municipal cities, the County s three harbors, John Wayne Airport, and the Orange County Transportation Agency. Professional affiliations include membership in the Major County Sheriffs Association, where she serves as vice-president, the National Sheriffs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Orange County Chiefs of Police and Sheriff s Association. Sheriff Hutchens serves as a board member for the California State Sheriffs Association and the Orange County Gang Reduction and Intervention Partnership. In 2012, she was appointed to the POST Commission by Governor Jerry Brown and currently serves as the Commissioner Chair. In addition, the Sheriff sits on the Board of Directors for the Orange County United Way and is an Advisory Board Member for the National Law Enforcement Cancer Support Foundation. Counter-terrorism training received in Israel, travels to Pakistan and Russia, and leadership training at the FBI National Academy, the FBI National Executive Institute and the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative course at Harvard University have provided Sheriff Hutchens with the expertise and vision needed to effectively lead an organization as diverse as the Orange County Sheriff s Department. 3

4 Merrick J. Bobb is PARC s Executive Director and head of its Los Angeles Officer. Merrick has consulted for or conducted work in all PARC projects since PARC s inception, including serving currently as the federal court-appointed Monitor of the Seattle Police Department, overseeing implementation of a consent decree between the city and Department of Justice that addresses excessive force and discriminatory policing issues. For 22 years, Merrick Bobb served as Special Counsel to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the purpose of monitoring the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), the fourth-largest law enforcement agency in the United States. In doing so, he functioned as the first long-term, independent monitor of a law enforcement agency. Mr. Bobb issued some 34 reports that addressed a host of critical issues, including use of force, civilian complaints, internal investigations and reviews of critical incidents, training, supervision, and risk management. Merrick Bobb served on three blue-ribbon commissions that investigated law enforcement in Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King incident in the early 1990s. The first was the Christopher Commission investigation of the LAPD, where Mr. Bobb served as a staff member and a Deputy General Counsel. Thereafter, Mr. Bobb served as Special Counsel to the Los Angeles Police Commission for the purposes of establishing the first Office of Inspector General (OIG) within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He co-authored a special study of the LAPD five years after the Rodney King incident. The second blue ribbon commission was the Kolts investigation of the LASD where Merrick Bobb served as General Counsel. The third blue-ribbon commission involved the LAPD. In 2005, he was appointed by Chief William Bratton to serve on a Board of Inquiry to examine LAPD SWAT practices. Before founding PARC, Merrick, a lawyer, worked at the law firms of Tuttle & Taylor and O'Melveny & Myers. At both firms, he specialized in complex litigation and investigation for public agencies, government, and corporate clients. He also conducted detailed investigations for corporate boards of directors of officers and directors. He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and of Dartmouth College. 4

5 Erwin Chemerinsky is the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at UC Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Prior to assuming this position in 2008, he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from , and before that was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School from , including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He is the author of eight books, including The Case Against the Supreme Court, published by Viking in 2014, and more than 200 law review articles. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court. Dean Chemerinsky is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. In 2014, National Jurist magazine named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States. 5

6 Brian Buchner has direct experience working in civilian oversight of law enforcement, during which he has examined police and oversight practices across the nation. In that time, he has reviewed hundreds of sensitive law enforcement investigations, including those that arise in the aftermath of an officer-involved shooting, in-custody death, or other critical police-involved incident. Currently, Mr. Buchner is a Policy Director in Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti s Office of Public Safety, focusing on policing policy and liaising with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD); the Los Angeles Police Commission; and the Police Commission s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Prior to joining the Mayor s Office, he was a Special Investigator with the OIG, which provides civilian oversight to the LAPD. Before joining the OIG in 2007, Mr. Buchner was the Policing Specialist at the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC), where he assisted Merrick Bobb, former Special Counsel to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and PARC s Executive Director, in monitoring and critically reviewing the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department. Mr. Buchner is the current president of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE), the nation s largest and premier police oversight organization. On behalf of NACOLE, Mr. Buchner is a member of the operations and innovations working group for the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, a federally funded, multi-year effort to improve relationships and increase trust between communities and the criminal justice system. Mr. Buchner also serves as a subject matter expert for the U.S. Department of Justice and as an Adviser to the American Law Institute s Principles of the Law, Police Investigations Project. He has spoken about policing and oversight issues in a variety of forums, including testifying before President Obama s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Mr. Buchner has also participated on panels hosted by NACOLE, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Society of Criminology, the California State Assembly, the Canadian Association for Civilian 6

7 Oversight of Law Enforcement, the Homicide Research Working Group, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Police Executive Research Forum, Seattle University, the United Nations, and the University of California-Los Angeles, as well as in communities across the country. Mr. Buchner holds a bachelor s degree in criminal justice from Bowling Green State University and a master s degree in criminology from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. 7

8 Tom Dominguez is a 28-year veteran and investigator with the Orange County Sheriff s Department. He currently serves as president of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. Prior to being elected AOCDS president, he served 20 years on the association's Board of Directors and 14 years as the Political Action Committee chairperson. Dominguez worked in the Men s Central Jail, as a patrol deputy, a field training officer and in the Transit Police Services bureau. He became an investigator in 1996, serving in General Investigations and Homicide. He was assigned to the Bomb Squad for 16 years as an FBI Certified Bomb Technician, including 10 full-time as a Bomb Technician and explosive detection canine handler. He was awarded the Medal of Courage from the Sheriff s Department in 2006 for his actions during a bomb incident in the city of Anaheim. Dominguez was appointed to the California Citizens Compensation Commission by then-gov. Pete Wilson and appointed to a second term by then-gov. Gray Davis. Dominguez is president of lodge #18 of the Fraternal Order of Police. He is also a member of Orange County Peace Officers Association (OCPOA), the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators (IABTI), the California Association of Tactical Officers (CATO), the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA), and the National Sheriff s Association (NSA). In 2013 he was elected as the president of the Southern California Alliance of Law Enforcement (SCALE), and organization representing over 30,000 professional law enforcement officers. 8

9 Michael Gennaco is a principal of OIR Group and provides oversight services in the field of independent oversight; assists federal courts and special masters in developing remedial plans intended to cure defects in Constitutional policing; conducts independent reviews of critical incidents including officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths and adverse constitutional verdicts; conducts audits of law enforcement departments focusing on review of internal investigative processes and policies designed to promote Constitutional policing; and undertakes independent internal investigations for police agencies. Mr. Gennaco headed up civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department for thirteen years and continues to provide ongoing oversight for the Anaheim, Fullerton, Palo Alto, Burbank and Santa Maria Police Departments. Mr. Gennaco has also played a central role in creating independent oversight models for both the largest sheriff s department and prison system in the United States. Mr. Gennaco has also provided independent review of critical incidents, adverse civil verdicts and/or best practices audits and designed remedial recommendations for the cities of Westminster, Pasadena, Portland, Torrance, Spokane, Santa Monica, Inglewood, Glendale, and Oakland Police Departments, and the Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, and Denver Sheriff Departments as well as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Department of Juvenile Justice. Mr. Gennaco has received the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement s Flame award for distinguished service in the field of oversight. 9

10 Prior to his work in police oversight, Mr. Gennaco served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California. As Chief of the Civil Rights Section, Mr. Gennaco was responsible for overseeing all investigations and allegations of federal civil rights violations and oversaw federal investigations and prosecutions of police officers for excessive force and other criminal constitutional violations. Mr. Gennaco also conducted prosecutions of human traffickers and white supremacists. Mr. Gennaco was also a federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and conducted grand jury investigations and prosecutions of abuse of authority under color of law in numerous jurisdictions throughout the country. Mr. Gennaco received numerous recognitions for his accomplishments at the Department of Justice including the coveted Attorney General Distinguished Service award. Mr. Gennaco is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Stanford Law School. 10