Sheriff pushes back on jail criticisms
SAN JOSE >> Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith, facing fresh scrutiny into allegations of abuse and neglect in South Bay jails, responded to the criticism Aug. 17 by attempting to shift blame away from her agency while rebuffing calls for her resignation.
During a 45-minute news conference Aug. 17 , Smith refuted allegations made in a Board of Supervisors referral that calls for independent investigations of the jail operations by the state Attorney General and the county Civil Grand Jury, citing serious injuries of mentally ill men in custody whose cases exposed the county to tens of millions of dollars in liability.
“I welcome any and all investigations,” Smith said, broadly characterizing the referral, from county supervisors Joseph Simitian and Otto Lee, as making “allegations without any information.”
Reacting to San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo’s statement that it was “painfully obvious” Smith needed to step down, the sheriff replied simply: “No.”
“I’m working because I love this organization,” she said. “We have a lot that we have to accomplish.”
The sheriff even invited an FBI investigation into Simitian and Lee’s suggestion that inmates’ civil rights are being violated.
In response, Simitian said, “Raising these issues of concern and asking folks to take a look at them, in the absence of transparency, is very different from alleging a fact which frankly can’t be alleged, because we can’t get access to the information we need.”
At a board meeting last week, Lee amended the referral to include a request for an inquiry into the sheriff’s office by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The board unanimously passed the referral, moving forward the requests for external probes.
Before the board vote, Supervisor Susan Ellenberg sought to re-center the conversation on those whose suffering elicited their attention in the first place.
“This referral is a stark reminder of our responsibility as a board to ensure that all residents of Santa Clara County, especially those who are in county custody, are entitled to and gently offered care and support rather than harsh violence and dehumanization,” Ellenberg said.
Smith ceded much of her news conference to attorney Paula Canny, who represented the family of Michael Tyree, whose 2015 beating death by three correctional deputies prompted calls for jail reforms. Canny also represented the family of Andrew Hogan, a mentally ill man who in 2018 inflicted serious head injuries to himself while unrestrained in a jail-transport van with no intervention. The case resulted in a $10 million county settlement.
Canny defended Smith, highlighting how the deputies accused of killing Tyree were promptly arrested. She also argued how jails have an “impossible task” in handling psychiatric disorders.
“We have a fundamentally broken system,” Canny said. “Asking a jail to be a 21st-century mental institution, it’s insane.”