Jim Painter

Jim Painter pops a cassette into the VCR and steps back to admire his work. "Look, it happens quickly," he says. Painter appears on the screen dressed in a policeman's uniform, pointing a shotgun at the noticeably exposed chest of sweaty Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's one of the final scenes from "Commando." "Freeze, don't even think about it," Painter's on-screen alter-ego barks at Schwarzenegger. The chubby-cheeked Painter ejects the tape and inserts another one.

Jim Painter pops a cassette into the VCR and steps back to admire his work. "Look, it happens quickly," he says. Painter appears on the screen dressed in a policeman's uniform, pointing a shotgun at the noticeably exposed chest of sweaty Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's one of the final scenes from "Commando." "Freeze, don't even think about it," Painter's on-screen alter-ego barks at Schwarzenegger. The chubby-cheeked Painter ejects the tape and inserts another one.

Jim Painter pops a cassette into the VCR and steps back to admire his work. "Look, it happens quickly," he says. Painter appears on the screen dressed in a policeman's uniform, pointing a shotgun at the noticeably exposed chest of sweaty Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's one of the final scenes from "Commando." "Freeze, don't even think about it," Painter's on-screen alter-ego barks at Schwarzenegger. The chubby-cheeked Painter ejects the tape and inserts another one.

Jim Painter pops a cassette into the VCR and steps back to admire his work. "Look, it happens quickly," he says. Painter appears on the screen dressed in a policeman's uniform, pointing a shotgun at the noticeably exposed chest of sweaty Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's one of the final scenes from "Commando." "Freeze, don't even think about it," Painter's on-screen alter-ego barks at Schwarzenegger. The chubby-cheeked Painter ejects the tape and inserts another one.

Sheriff Jim Roache has chosen Jim Painter, former chief of custody for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, as director of detentions for San Diego County jails. Painter spent 33 years with the sheriff's department before working for an architectural firm in Irvine beginning in April, 1990. In Los Angeles, Painter managed a staff of 3,200 and administered the jail population of about 23,000 inmates. He also was a member of the California Board of Corrections for three years.

San Diego County officials failed to meet a judge's demand to reduce inmate populations by Tuesday at all county jails but professed "substantial compliance" because only a few jails were over court-ordered caps, and then only by a handful of inmates.

Disturbed by problems befalling several of his deputies in recent weeks, San Diego County Sheriff Jim Roache said Tuesday that his 1,349-member department has to work harder to attract a higher quality of law enforcement officer or suffer the consequences. "I don't want to condemn anyone, but we've got to wonder whether we've reaped what we've sowed in this department," he said.

Visions and revisions. * Desert Storm fashion statement. The hottest seller at G.I. Joe's Army Navy Surplus Store in Solana Beach: desert camouflage for children. * Actor David Ogden Stiers is doing a cameo in a fund-raising video for the Center for the Arts in Escondido. He'll be himself, not Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester.

Officials met a judge-imposed deadline to sharply reduce the inmate count at the County Jail in downtown San Diego, but three of four outlying jails remain jammed beyond legal limits, authorities disclosed at a court hearing Wednesday. El Cajon Superior Court Judge James A. Malkus, who is monitoring conditions at the jails under two lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, praised county officials for lowering the inmate count at the downtown jail.

San Diego County's detention system, consistently ranked as the nation's most crowded, got a modicum of relief Monday as officials dedicated a pair of jails on Otay Mesa to house 2,000 inmates but conceded that it may be some time before all of its beds can be filled.

San Diego County Sheriff Jim Roache has refused a civilian oversight board permission to inspect the county jails, setting the stage for a possible legal showdown between the board and a sheriff who endorsed the citizen group when he ran for office in 1990. The sheriff's decision has angered members of the review committee, which was approved by voters the same year Roache was elected to office.

Even with a whopping budget deficit, San Diego County is sticking to plans for an early 1993 opening of the maximum-security jail that has been built, but has been standing vacant for months on East Mesa, a county lawyer assured a judge Wednesday. Despite a looming county budget deficit--projected late Wednesday at $44.