L.A. County Sheriff to spend $300,000 on uniform hardware
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is getting down to brass tactics.
Sheriff’s officials are spending $300,000 on items they say would make deputies look more professional in their jobs and could help make them safer.
But the taxpayer dollars won’t go toward tools such as higher-quality ballistic vests, backup guns or body cameras, all of which are optional items that deputies have to pay for on their own.
Instead, Sheriff Jim McDonnell is spending the money on a minor cosmetic makeover of deputies’ uniforms: changing the color of their belt buckles and other metal pieces of gear from silver to gold. That way, the metallic bits — all made of brass — will match the goldhued tie clips, lapel pins and six-pointed star badges that deputies already wear, McDonnell said.
The sheriff says the change is important to maintaining a professional look for deputies on the job, but the move has generated criticism among some rank-and-file deputies and others who argue that it’s a misuse of money at a time when the department is struggling to deal with more fundamental problems than the appearance of its street cops.
Officials with the union that represents the bulk of the department’s 9,100 deputies note that the agency is facing a chronic staff shortage and a recurring budget deficit. For the last several years, the department has been keeping about 1,000 professional staff and 300 deputy positions unfilled so that it can overcome a yearly $250 million shortfall. As a result, deputies are often required to work back-to-back shifts.
“This (expenditure) is something that would be better suited to a department that’s running like a well-oiled machine, but not a department that’s in turmoil,” said Detective Ron Hernandez, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs.
McDonnell defended the changes, saying the coordinated gold-colored buckles, belt snaps, baton rings and key holders would “finish off the uniform” and better convey to a suspect that a deputy is in control.
“The first impression somebody gets of one of our deputies in the field is what they look like when they approach. Are they squared-away looking? Do they have their gear in place? Are they physically fit?” McDonnell said in a recent interview. He said a suspect might be thinking: “’Am I gonna run? Am I gonna fight? What am I gonna do?’
“Often our deputies are in situations where they’re all by themselves, and they need to exude command presence.”