California
Related: About this forumIn a California county where the sheriff is also the coroner, families seek change
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/06/riverside-california-sheriff-chad-bianco-coroner(more links at source)
Families of people who died in one of Riverside countys jails say they lack confidence in the system investigating their loved ones deaths
Madison Aument (KVCR) and Mike Kessler (The California Newsroom)
Thu 6 Jun 2024 07.00 EDT
[...]
Their fight comes amid a headline-making spike in jail deaths in this sprawling county east of Los Angeles. In 2022, at least 19 people died while held in Riverside county detention facilities, according to California department of justice data. Thats a higher rate of jail deaths than in LA county that year, which had three times as many inmates. Last year, at least 14 people died in the Riverside county detention centers.
But the high number of deaths isnt the only reason behind the families quest. In Riverside county, as in 48 of Californias 58 counties, the coroners office is run by the sheriffs department the same agency that runs the jails.
That structure, legal experts say, presents at least the perception of a conflict of interest when someone dies in jail, in police custody, or following police use of force.
Many families of people who have died in Riverside county jails agree. Thats because Chad Bianco the Riverside county sheriff and a rabble-rouser who was once affiliated with the Oath Keepers and recently endorsed Trump by saying I think its time to put a felon in the White House has deflected responsibility for the deaths on his watch. When the California attorney general in 2023 announced an investigation into Biancos department, he dismissed it as a political maneuver by his detractors in Sacramento. Every single one of these inmate deaths was out of anyones control, Bianco told Riversides Press-Enterprise. The fact of the matter is that they just happened to be in our custody.
[...]
Riverside is a big-ass county. Surely there is one other person who is qualified for one of those jobs and could be in that position. In California no less. Shit, the little county I live in has two different people in those two positions.
quaint
(3,545 posts)Last edited Thu Jun 6, 2024, 01:26 PM - Edit history (1)
When my mother-in-law passed at home in Orange County, it was easy. Her doctor told us that when it happened to tell sheriff-coroner he would sign the death certificate. We called the coroner, he took the information by phone, and told us to call the mortuary.
When my mother passed at home in Los Angeles county, we called 911, they sent paramedics who said (not "pronounced " ) she was dead, which we knew, they called the coroner and we waited three hours for someone to be free to come and pronounce her dead. It was very hard on my father.
That is the good reason for the combined offices but the bad reasons override it.
BlueWaveNeverEnd
(10,197 posts)basically made sure she hadn't been murdered by relatives.