S.J. County D.A. calls for Sheriff’s Office to discontinue coroner role

STOCKTON — San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar announced Monday an ongoing investigation into the Sheriff’s Office sparked by two pathologists’ allegations of grave misconduct, and recommended the county sheriff and coroner roles be separated.

Memos from Drs. Bennet Omalu and Susan Parson made public last week alleged Sheriff-Coroner Steve Moore pressured the physicians to find officer-involved deaths as “accidents” and left bodies in the morgue for weeks on end without cause.

A San Joaquin County Sheriff ’s Office sergeant also ordered at least five corpses’ hands cut off for identification purposes, Omalu said, despite the bodies having been positively identified by family members after the subjects died at home.

Parson resigned Nov. 27, while Omalu did so on Dec. 5. The two notified the district attorney of the alleged misconduct several months ago, at which point Salazar’s office began looking into alternative structures used in other California counties.

Salazar’s announcement came hours after protesters marched through downtown Stockton to the San Joaquin County Courthouse. Led by Dionne Smith-Downs, who challenged the coroner’s report after her 16-year-old son James Rivera Jr. was fatally shot by police in 2010, the protester called on Moore to resign and an independent investigation to be conducted into the sheriff’s office.

Omalu and Parson’s union representative said Friday the doctors would consider withdrawing their resignations if the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors separated the sheriff and coroner’s offices. Salazar called for an independent committee to analyze other models used around the state and formally recommend one to the five-person board.

In Santa Clara County, where Salazar and her understudies spent a day observing operations, the sheriff and coroner’s departments were split last year after under similar allegations of law enforcement officials interfering in medical determinations.

Personnel changes from dividing the two offices cost the county nearly $850,000.