Paul Tanaka calls on Baca to take responsibility in jail abuse

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

Paul Tanaka, the former undersheriff who is challenging his old boss Sheriff Lee Baca in next year’s election, made his first public statement Wednesday since news broke that the federal government had arrested 18 current and former members of the Sheriff’s Department in a jail abuse and corruption scandal.

“The residents of Los Angeles County deserve better, as do the hard-working men and women of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. It’s time for the sheriff to take responsibility for the decisions he has made as the top public safety official in the county,” Tanaka said in a written statement.

“I’m running for sheriff because I believe we can do better, and we can do it together,” he continued. “It’s time to end the blame game, and give the residents of Los Angeles County a department they can trust and one in which deputies can be proud to serve. That’s why I’m running for sheriff.”

Tanaka did not directly mention the arrests or the ongoing federal investigation into the nation’s largest Sheriff’s Department, which could affect his candidacy, as well as Baca’s.

Baca forced out Tanaka earlier this year amid criticism over the jail abuse scandal. And the special county commission given the task of examining inmate abuse in the jails found Tanaka helped foster a culture of abuse in his management style, as well as in remarks he made to rank-and-file deputies.

Though not directly responsible for overseeing the jails, the commission concluded that he did influence their operations. Tanaka has said previously that he was focused on reducing crime and the department’s budget and wasn’t in the jail system’s chain of command during the period of alleged problems.

Baca, who is seeking a fifth term in office, called the arrests a “sad day” for the department, but has said it was not reflective of a larger institutional problem in the department. Though Baca has a major fundraising and name recognition advantage, as well as deep ties to diverse communities across the county, some political strategists say the arrests, the latest in a slew of controversies to dog Baca, could affect his reelection prospects.

The other major candidate in the race, retired Cmdr. Bob Olmsted, has seized upon the scandal since the news of the arrests broke Monday, arguing that it is further proof that neither Baca nor Tanaka is qualified for the job.

Olmsted oversaw the sheriff’s most troubled lockups at one time, and Baca has asserted that he should have done more to correct problems. But Olmsted insists he was a whistle-blower, commissioning internal audits of deputies’ use of force, trying to alert top brass to abuse and eventually taking his concerns to the media and the FBI.

[For the Record, 5:47 p.m. Dec. 11: An earlier version of this post misspelled Cmdr. Bob Olmsted’s name in one reference.]

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