KPBS Lawsuit Reveals Unanswered Citizen Complaints Against Sheriff's Department
Speaker 1: 00:00 KPBS sued the San Diego Sheriff's department to release records that show how long it takes them to respond to citizens complaints about its officers after nearly a year long battle for the records, the sheriff's department released the data last week. KPBS investigative reporter Claire Track us or tells us their records reveal how many of those citizen complaints go on answered people file complaints about everything from feeling like an officer was rude during a traffic stop to sexual assault. One deputy is currently on trial for allegedly assaulting multiple women. They say their complaints to the department were ignored. The data KPBS sued for shows that 72 complaints made to the sheriff's department never got a response of any kind. That's about a sixth of the total complaints received of the complaints that did get a response. 42 people had to wait more than a month. The average response time was 13 days. KPBS compared those numbers to the San Diego Police Department. Speaker 1: 01:03 Their average response time to complaints was 12.7 days. The sheriff's department handed over these numbers last week after KPBS sued. And that was KPBS reporter Claire Treg a for more details on the lawsuit. She spoke with evening edition anger, Ebony Monet. So Claire, tell us about this lawsuit. Right. So about a year ago we asked the sheriff's department for the dates that they received complaints and the dates that they responded to those complaints and we felt like that was a pretty straight forward requests, but the department said No. Uh, so then we worked with lawyers at Sheppard Mullin law firm to try and negotiate to get those records. Um, we even offered to compromise and say, you know, give us just a sample of, of the dates. Um, and they still said no to that. So in January we filed a lawsuit to get the records and after that lawsuit was filed, um, the San Diego County indicated that they might be willing to negotiate for a settlement. Speaker 1: 02:02 And so, uh, we worked on that and then last week the settlement was reached and we got all of the records, uh, not just a sample of them. So why did you make the request? Well, it started after multiple women accused of sheriff's, uh, Sheriff's deputy of, uh, sexually assaulting them. And they said that they sent in letters to the department and complained to the department and never got a response. And so that made us want to ask, okay, does that happen a lot? Um, so we just asked for the dates that people had complained and, and when they got a response to those complaints. So how has the sheriff's department responded? So they wouldn't do an on camera interview? Uh, but I did talk with Robert Fagan, who is the chief attorney for the sheriff's department. And he said, yeah, there are some complaints that haven't received a response, but he said that there are reasons for that. Speaker 1: 02:54 Uh, for example, someone might be, um, their complaint might be unintelligible. Say something like his quote, uh, Martians landed on my yard, or the government is out to get me and they wouldn't respond to those complaints. Or maybe someone doesn't have a return address or they can't locate them. Uh, reasons like that. So during the course of your investigation, um, any more details about how they handled complaints? Yeah, so he said initially they track all of the complaints, the dates that they received them in a computer log, but then they don't go ahead and track when they responded. That changed in 2017 they got a new computer system and they were started also logging the, the dates they, that they responded to those complaints in past reporting that I've done on this, I spoke with Dave Myers who's a 35 year veteran of the sheriff's department and he says that there actually isn't a really a set system for how they handle complaints. And he said that it makes the process ripe for abuse. Speaker 2: 03:55 No other documentation. There's no other discussions. There may be a follow up email, maybe two, an immediate supervisor, uh, of what happened. And that would be the end of it. Speaker 1: 04:06 And we should mention Meyers retired last summer after unsuccessfully challenging, uh, Sheriff Bill Gore in the election for the sheriff. So now that you've reached a settlement, what can you tell us about the, the terms of the set of Milton? Right? So like I said, they're going to provide, they provided all of the dates, um, that they responded to these complaints. Uh, they also paid about $18,000 in attorney's fees. Um, and they are, lawyers really need that money, need the attorney's fees to be able to take on cases like this. They can't spend all of their time and not get any money for it. The sheriff's department has argued that it was a waste of taxpayer money to do this lawsuit. I would say that they could have provided the records in the first place and avoided having to pay anything. Very interesting. KPBS investigative reporter Claire Tresor. Thanks so much. Thank you. Speaker 2: 04:59 And She was speaking to evening edition Anchor Ebony Monet Speaker 3: 05:03 [inaudible].
