The state of California is now suing Los Angeles County over the ongoing dreadful, dangerous conditions in its jails after 36 deaths have been reported so far this year.
Attorney General Rob Bonta specifically called out Sheriff Robert Luna for what he called a “humanitarian crisis” in the jails, saying that inmates aren’t given clean water and edible food, and are kept in unsafe, dirty facilities among roaches and rats. “More alarming, people are dying,” he said.
Luna inherited problems from past sheriffs that have built over decades and hasn’t been able to turn this dire situation around. The Board of Supervisors’ inability to do something about the main crisis, the deteriorating condition of Men’s Central Jail, has hampered any ability the county has to fix the problem.
But county leaders still have the opportunity to fix what’s broken, and should, in his honor, allow the death late last month of the key proponent of jail reform here, Merrick Bobb, who for 20 years beginning in 1993 served as special counsel to the supervisors and delivered semiannual reports on the crisis, to finally spur them to into action.
Bobb, who died at 79 on Aug. 28, also was deputy general counsel for the Christopher Commission, which crucially detailed the problems within the city of Los Angeles Police Department after the 1991 beating of Rodney King. The commission’s report called on then-Chief Daryl Gates to step down and said what too many people in L.A. had known for too long — that the LAPD had an unchecked tendency toward excessive use of force.
As the Los Angeles Times detailed in an obituary, Bobb, formerly a litigator with major L.A. law firms, went on to a long career spotlighting problems within large law enforcement agencies from L.A. to Seattle. “And he accomplished his most significant work without the use of his hands or legs, which became effectively paralyzed after he contracted a rare and debilitating autoimmune condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome in 2003,” the Times reported.
Meanwhile, news reports indicate the county is heading in the wrong direction, including a proposal to close the Sybil Brand Commission, a key jail watchdog group. Bobb knew, as we all should, that transparency and oversight are key to unearthing and ultimately solving problems.
Unfortunately, LA County leaders haven’t fully internalized this lesson.