Lee Baca

Lee Baca's victory is a large step toward the professionalism the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has always touted itself to possess, but has many times failed to apply when working with its constituents, particularly with those who have now brought Baca to the department's leadership. This expression of the new, Eastside voting power will not be a blip on this century's horizon, but will carry on into the next millennium. Let us pray that the gran politicos and humbled news media of Los Angeles County cooperate with Baca in his quest to have his department provide the best services possible to all. Good luck, Mr. Baca.

Facing an FBI investigation into brutality in his jails, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca publicly committed Tuesday to shuttering much of his most problematic lockup, Men's Central Jail, barring some unexpected hike in violent crime. In the past, Baca has tied the idea of shutting down the troubled downtown Los Angeles facility to the county agreeing to pay for an expensive new jail. The Times reported last month that Baca was now open to shutting down the old section of Men's Central Jail - the epicenter of violent clashes between deputies and inmates - even without that new jail.

If he was wearing anything but that uniform, you might not recognize him. As the sheriff of Los Angeles County, Lee Baca is, as Donald Rumsfeld would say, one of the best "known unknowns" in Southern California. And what he says may not always be recognizable as a casting director's idea of a rootin' tootin' gunslingin' Western sheriff. Baca has leveraged his badge and his law enforcement chops into topics many of his colleagues ignore: mental illness, education, homelessness, religion, and how they all affect the community that his department polices.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department improperly concealed the identities of at least two reserve deputies who are political supporters of Sheriff Lee Baca and were given access to county cars. The Sheriff's Department denied a public records request last year from The Times regarding take-home county car use and gasoline consumption by four reserves who have given Baca political support or gifts. The department declined to even confirm that the men were reserves, citing "the confidential nature of some assignments.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was hospitalized Sunday in Las Vegas with apparent dehydration symptoms after running a leg of the grueling Baker-to-Vegas Challenge Cup Relay race, the Sheriff's Department said. Baca, 59, received intravenous fluids and was in good condition, but remained hospitalized at an undisclosed Las Vegas facility, said Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Sonia Parra. The race, run in 20 segments of about 6.

A sheriff who also cares Re "Patt Morrison Asks / Lee Baca: Social worker," Opinion, Sept. 18 Thank you for that insightful interview with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. I've heard him speak many times, and he is a true visionary. One thing that was not mentioned in the interview is how he and his department are very aware of the fact that with every violent crime, there is also a victim. Baca takes an active role in the moral obligation of society to assist in the healing of those victims, to become survivors.

Former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa's mayoral campaign on Thursday picked up the support of an array of public safety officials who said he has worked to toughen gun legislation and bring more resources to Los Angeles for law enforcement. Los Angeles Police Commissioner Raquelle de la Rocha, who has previously donated to the mayoral campaigns of City Atty. James K. Hahn and businessman Steve Soboroff, said she believes Villaraigosa is best suited to bring about meaningful police reform.

The state attorney general is investigating Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca's Homeland Security Support Unit, a group of local businessmen who volunteered to assist the department with investigations and donated money to the sheriff's political campaigns. The department has suspended the unit, which had about 50 members, pending the outcome of the state investigation and its own internal affairs review, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Friday.

In the political world, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is embattled. The Board of Supervisors is mad at him for spending beyond his budget, for the questionable death of a jail inmate, for buying the Sheriff's Department a new passenger plane, for alleged ethical transgressions within the department. But in the religious world, Baca is a hero, a man steeped in a surprising variety of faiths with an unapologetic belief in spirituality's ability to change lives.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected today to ask Sheriff Lee Baca to prepare a report on Paris Hilton's release from jail in Lynwood -- just three days into her mandated 23-day stay -- to determine whether she was afforded special treatment. Baca had cited an undisclosed medical condition for allowing Hilton to leave the Century Regional Detention Facility and serve the remainder of her sentence under home confinement. But a judge disagreed, sending her back to jail Friday.

Facing a federal investigation into allegations of brutality in his jails, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is considering a bold proposal to shutter a portion of the department's most troubled lockup that has been plagued by inmate killings, excessive force by guards and poor supervision. The plan would shift about 1,800 inmates, including many of the county's most violent criminals, from the old section of Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, a sheriff's jail commander said.

For months, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Phillip Hansen heard the grumblings: Deep-pocketed donors and other well-connected individuals working as reserve deputies were driving around in unmarked Sheriff's Department cars. One reserve, a restaurant owner who threw a fundraiser for Sheriff Lee Baca, was frequently seen parking a county-owned Ford Crown Victoria outside his La Mirada restaurant, a popular hangout for deputies. Hansen, who heads the volunteer deputy program, was troubled by the reports and asked for an accounting of which reserves had take-home cars.

L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca said he would get behind a "sensible" plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants who have been in the country for several years without breaking any other laws. Baca's comments Thursday came the day after Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck also expressed support for such a plan, saying that it would reduce the number of hit-and-run accidents and uninsured drivers on city roads. Baca said such licenses should only be issued after illegal immigrants fill out comprehensive applications, similar to those for citizenship.

Not a bad year for news, 2011, and I hate to see it fade away so quickly. In fact, I'm not going to let it. In Southern California, I'm not sure who had the worse year. Was it Dodgers owner Frank McCourt or L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca? A tossup, I'd say. McCourt lost a wife, alienated a city with the help of his ex, drove the Dodgers into both mediocrity and bankruptcy, and is now being forced to sell the team. If McCourt is looking for a silver lining, it will be nearly impossible for him to have a worse year in 2012.

The special commission investigating allegations of abuse inside the Los Angeles County jails is discussing the possibility of allowing jail deputies to testify anonymously. Some commissioners are considering the idea as a way to combat what the sheriff's independent watchdog described as a code of silence that exists among some jail deputies that has prevented investigators in the past from getting to the bottom of some abuse allegations. One commissioner, the Rev. Cecil Murray, said in an interview that he would even consider partial criminal immunity for deputies who admit involvement in a crime.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said Tuesday that he will create a task force to minimize the wrongful jailings of people mistaken for someone else. Baca's move came in response to a Times investigation that found hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized their true identities. "It's a horrible reality of what is basically the imperfect nature of the criminal justice system," Baca said in an interview.

If L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca was feisty last week when he tangled with a Republican congressman in Washington, D.C., he was even more impassioned Tuesday while discussing it. A week ago, Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) impugned Baca during a House Homeland Security subcommittee meeting, saying the sheriff had allied himself with a Muslim American group that engaged in "radical" speech by going to its fundraisers. Baca not only attacked that description of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but he also told Souder he would be fine with going to more fundraisers for the group.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca needs to take and keep taking responsibility for the state of the jails he runs. For several months now, he has attempted to shift responsibility for the problems to anyone but himself. In October, Baca was more outraged by a federal investigation into the jails than the allegations of inmate abuse and deputy misconduct that prompted it. He even went so far as to suggest that the FBI was the real source of troubles in the jails, for its conduct in an investigation there.

In the coming weeks, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to decide whether to approve a $1.4-billion jail construction project that would help ease overcrowding at Men's Central Jail and prevent the early release of some inmates. The county's chief executive and Sheriff Lee Baca argue that the plan, which calls for rebuilding one facility and expanding a second, would make the nation's largest jail system safer and cheaper to operate. It's hard to argue with the need or the logic.