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PREVIOUSLY: In First Report of the Year, Grand Jury Recommends Civilian Oversight Board for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office

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With Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal out on vacation and Undersheriff Justin Braud busy responding to yesterday’s fatal plane crash in Kneeland, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors decided to postpone a decision on whether to create a new level of oversight for the Sheriff’s Office.

But the discussion during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting illuminated the starkly differing viewpoints among the five supervisors regarding the need for such oversight and the degree of deference owed to an independently elected law enforcement officer.

First District Supervisor and Board Chair Rex Bohn, in particular, defended to Sheriff Honsal, declaring that Humboldt County has “great law enforcement” while pointing to Honsal’s overwhelming wins at the ballot box (where, it should be noted, he has run entirely unopposed since being hand-picked as the de-facto successor of former Sheriff Mike Downey in 2013 and then elevated by the Board of Supervisors to the role of interim sheriff in 2017). 

Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell also showed deference to Honsal, suggesting that the board postpone any decision until he and Braud could be present to discuss the matter.

Meanwhile, fellow supervisors Natalie Arroyo, Steve Madrone and Mike Wilson – generally considered the progressive majority on the five-member board – voiced support for following the recommendations of the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury by establishing either a civilian oversight board or an inspector general with subpoena power. They argued that this additional layer of accountability could increase public trust and transparency while improving communication between law enforcement and the community.

The board was responding to an April report from the Civil Grand Jury, which found that Humboldt County lacks an independent means of oversight and review of critical incidents and allegations of misconduct involving the sheriff’s office, and that this lack of oversight can lead to public misunderstanding and mistrust.

The Grand Jury pointed out that California government code delegates to the board “a statutory duty to supervise the conduct of all county officers,” including elected officials such as the sheriff. A code section that went into effect just three years ago grants the board discretion to create an oversight board and inspector general for such supervision, and the Grand Jury recommended they do just that.

County staff agreed with the Grand Jury’s findings and presented the board with options to either:

1. create one or both of those oversight entities (a civilian review board or an Office of Inspector General) right away or
2. declare that while those ideas are reasonable and deserve further analysis, there’s just not enough money to implement them at the moment given the county’s current $15 million budget deficit. Instead, establish a working group to research models for independent oversight as well as costs and funding opportunities.

“Any measures taken should take into account the need for oversight and recognition of the challenging work done by the sheriff and Humboldt County’s law enforcement professionals,” the staff report said.

In the board’s discussion, Arroyo brought up her experiences during her time on the Eureka City Council, noting that former Eureka Police Chief Andy Mills created an advisory board that was initially just that – advisory – but gradually got transformed into more of an oversight body.

She noted that the department’s inflammatory 2021 texting scandal resulted in a loss of public trust. Arroyo said that while many many see civilian oversight primarily as a means of serving a “watchdog” function over the sheriff’s office, “this other really important piece of it is about communication and understanding and getting people interested in law enforcement.”

Madrone brought up Sheriff’s Honsal’s recent push to place himself and his deputies in front of the reality TV cameras of “On Patrol: Live,” a cable series that follows on-duty law enforcement officers in real-time. 

“So I know that the sheriff is very interested in building that trust and transparency in the community,” Madrone said.

He argued that the county needs critical incident oversight of the Sheriff’s Office given its recent history, including an officer-involved shooting, the response to protests on Humboldt Redwood Company land and, most recently, the raid on demonstrators up at Cal Poly Humboldt, where officers were accused of overreacting and violating press freedoms.

“The justification for that was written up as there was a high probability of violence that would occur, and I would completely disagree with that assessment,” Madrone said, noting that protests at other college campuses were resolved peacefully through de-escalation. 

As for the cost, Madrone said civilian oversight might actually save the county money by avoiding costly lawsuits.

“Don’t get this wrong; I support law enforcement,” Madrone said, noting that he voted to approve raises for deputies “to boost retention and morale.” 

But Madrone also brought up the corruption scandal that fell into Honsal’s lap shortly after he became sheriff: namely, the practice in his office’s Public Administrator division of selling property from the estates of the recently deceased to deputies and other county employees in violation of state law.

“And we were promised at that time when that [internal] investigation was done, that the community would know the outcome, yet when it all got done, it was, ‘Well, we can’t divulge any of this because of the union stuff or other stuff that occurred,’” Madrone said. Ultimately, people never really knew what the results of that oversight were. I had an issue with that.”

Madrone voiced support for civilian oversight, saying, “I don’t think we can afford not to do this.”

Bushnell sought to pump the brakes, saying, “I would like to work with the sheriff to develop a plan and have him present for that discussion.”

Bohn agreed and then argued that there’s already plenty of oversight on the Sheriff’s Office, including a critical response team from the California Department of Justice, the Civil Grand Jury and the Human Rights Commission.

“I think ironic,” Bohn said. “The sheriff’s rating is about 25 percent better than the Board of Supervisors, but we’re talking about putting an oversight committee on him.”

This was another reference to Honsal’s performance in elections, compared to those of the five supervisors. Unlike other publicly elected positions, though, the state of California restricts the pool of candidates for county sheriff to only people who have law enforcement certification and/or experience. This often leads to incumbents running unopposed.

“That’s an issue especially in smaller counties,” the Fresno Bee reported back in 2022. “Sonoma County, for example, once went 25 years without a contested election.”

The Humboldt County Sheriff hasn’t faced a ballot box challenge since 2010, when former Sheriff Mike Downey defeated Deputy District Attorney Investigator Michael Hislop by a more than two-to-one margin.

Bohn said his preference would be to “have the decision made with the party it affects,” meaning the board should wait until Honsal can be there.

He made a motion to go with option two from the staff report, with the board appointing a working group sometime next month. That group would then be required to give its recommendations to the board before October 30, the deadline for responding the the Civil Grand Jury’s report. 

Bushnell seconded the motion. 

During the public comment period, Larry Giventer, one member of this latest Civil Grand Jury, said he and his fellow jurors spent several months on the report, and he pointed out that among its first words are these: “oversight is constructive, not punitive.”

Richard Bergstresser, another Civil Grand Jury member and a retired police officer, addressed the board on his own behalf. He argued that, contrary to Bohn’s suggestion, the Civil Grand Jury is “not the appropriate oversight body” for the Sheriff’s Office since it deals with systemic review rather that specific cases. Similarly, a law enforcement liaison group that the county established in 2010 didn’t fit the bill because it “had no teeth.”

Bergstresser said that the cost of oversight efforts could likely be covered by grants. He referenced the increased public scrutiny of law enforcement nationwide in recent years, saying, “a lot of people are more concerned and involved and want transparency than ever before, and they deserve to have it.”

“This is not about oversight of the sheriff,” he added. “This is about oversight of the largest, most high-profile law enforcement agency in this county.”

Bohn said the board should wait to see what the working group they establish comes up with and then defer to Honsal.

“I just think we’ll see what they put together and see what the sheriff thinks is a reasonable approach,” he said. “At the end of the day, and maybe I’m all wrong here, the difference is [that] he’s elected to run the sheriff’s department. … He’s the key element to what we can do here. … Because he’s elected, he’s earned that respect and that right to make that decision. I’m sorry, but that’s the way I feel.”

Arroyo pushed back. “This isn’t a commentary on the sheriff,” she said. “I’m just putting that out there again.”

“He’s elected by the people with numbers we’d all love to have, so it seems like there’s not as much opposition and his department … ,” Bohn replied. “We’re trying to make it sound like there is a huge amount of problems, and I don’t get that many phone calls about that. To have somebody overseeing his department or micromanaging it is what could very well happen.

Arroyo again weighed in. “I would just like to reiterate that the role of oversight isn’t inherently punitive or solely about the individual at the head … ,” she said. “There are a number of reasons why it behooves us to think about [civilian oversight] during a time where we’re not under extreme pressure and duress when an incident has take place.” 

Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to bring the matter back at a later date, when Honsal will presumably be in attendance.