February 19, 2009

Can't pick out the good guys from the bad guys

Well this makes complete sense now. The reason the LASD screws up so much is they hire bottom of the barrel people for $70,000+ of your tax dollars each year, which does not include gold plated pensions (to retire at 50) and lifetime healthcare for your family. Oh by all means hire more. Lakewood is falling all over itself to hire even more of these gems with its $800,000 in "Stimulus" money it is counting on (don't count your chickens before they hatch as they say) Just think each brand spanking new deputy sheriff we hire represents a whole career of mistakes (like taser deaths and shootings) that we we get to pay for on top of it. Oh and there wont be any stimulus money to pay for those lawsuits. Just since January of 2008 there were 36 lawsuits filed against the LASD in one district in federal court. That does not include state court filed suits or other personal injury claims that were settled before filing. The total is likely three times that number and that is just for 2008! Cops tell me that the reason for the high starting salary is to get high quality recruits. Well that theory is out the window. Sounds like union speak to me.

And this hiring has been going on since 2006? I guess that explains why things are going down hill so fast. It probably now takes two new deputies at twice they pay each to do the job of the one they replaced. And Baca wants to continue to highlight these guys in a reality TV show?

The news is certainly looking up for the Sheriff's department. What can the taxpayers do about it? Nothing as long as the city council does not care. Just hope you dont get tased


In new hiring push, Sheriff's Department gives jobs to deputies with criminal records
February 19, 2009
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/02/amid-an-aggress.html

Amid an aggressive push to bolster its ranks with thousands of new deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department loosened its hiring practices and gave jobs to recruits who in the past would have been rejected, according to an LASD watchdog report released Thursday.

Among those hired were applicants with criminal records, drug and alcohol problems and financial woes. One recruit, for example, had been fired for excessive force from another police agency. Another was hired despite being a suspected car thief and resigned months later after being arrested on assault charges. A third candidate was a heavy marijuana and steroid abuser who had been arrested and convicted of underage drinking shortly before he applied to become an LASD deputy.

The report, written by the county’s Office of Independent Review, criticized the LASD for its 2006 decision to abandon a strict hiring policy, in which aspiring sheriff’s deputies were automatically disqualified if they failed to pass an exacting background check or any other part of the application process. In its place, the report found, the department adopted a more “holistic” approach that allowed applicants to be hired if officials determined they had reformed themselves or that past mistakes were insignificant.

The change came as the department was ramping up its hiring. Coming off several years of stiff budget constraints in which the size of the department shrank significantly, sheriff’s officials set out to make up for lost ground in 2006, more than doubling the number of hires from the year before.

“They had a mission and that mission was to hire deputies,” said Michael Gennaco, head of the Office of Independent Review, which oversees the LASD. “Unfortunately, it may have come at a price.”

-- Joel Rubin


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