Supervisors Order Public Hearing on Sheriff’s Department : Law enforcement: Action follows four fatal shootings by deputies. The board stops short of creating a review panel like the Christopher Commission.

Los Angeles County supervisors took the unprecedented step Tuesday of ordering a public hearing into operations of the Sheriff’s Department in the wake of four fatal shootings by deputies since Aug. 3.

But supervisors took no steps to create an independent commission to investigate the Sheriff’s Department, drawing criticism from a Latino assemblyman.

“The tally is now at four,” Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) said. “How many people must die before the board is willing to ask why?”

Gloria Molina has been the only supervisor willing to support a review of the Sheriff’s Department by an independent panel similar to the Christopher Commission, which investigated the Los Angeles Police Department after the videotaped police beating of Rodney G. King.

Polanco speculated that supervisors may be unwilling to more closely examine the Sheriff’s Department because “they depend on (Sheriff Sherman) Block for responding to (crime) problems that need to be corrected in their districts.”

Supervisors Kenneth Hahn, Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana have said they believe the Sheriff’s Department is well run and they have no intention of second-guessing Block, another elected official.

Dana joined Supervisors Ed Edelman and Molina in supporting the public hearing, as did Hahn, who has been under increased pressure from his black and Latino constituents to review Sheriff’s Department policies. Antonovich was on vacation.

Their decision was made politically easier because Block announced last week that he would attend the hearing. Supervisors scheduled the hearing for 1 p.m. Tuesday in the board chambers.

Molina proposed the hearing after the Aug. 3 slaying of Arturo Jimenez at the Ramona Gardens housing project in Lincoln Heights. Since then, three more people have been killed by sheriff’s deputies under circumstances that witnesses dispute. The most recent victim was a 28-year-old man shot to death while on a Labor Day outing in Willowbrook.

The public hearing was applauded as a welcome first step by about a dozen black, Latino and Asian community activists who attended the board meeting Tuesday. Among those speaking in support of the hearing were representatives of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

“I’m worried about the good name of the Sheriff’s Department,” said Father Juan Santillan of St. Lucy’s Catholic Church in City Terrace. “Gentlemen, I couldn’t begin to convey to you the (abusive) words I have received from some of these deputies only because I (wasn’t wearing my) collar.”

Karol Heppe, director of the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service, told supervisors that her agency has received 323 complaints against the Sheriff’s Department through June, compared to 419 complaints in all of last year.

Molina has asked Block to report on policies dealing with excessive force and cultural sensitivity.

“It is imperative that the relationship between a community and its police force be characterized by trust, confidence and mutual respect,” Molina said. “Recent incidents demonstrate that the current relationship between the Sheriff’s Department and many of the communities they serve is falling short of these goals and demands immediate attention.”

But Dana agreed with Block’s contention that an increasingly violent society is at least partly responsible for the rash of deputy-involved shootings. “As the sheriff says,” Dana said, “these are dangerous times.”