Email  Print

Sheriff has concurrent jurisdiction at SDC

Editor, Index-Tribune:

    

  Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas’s assistant said his office couldn’t investigate the serial torture of Sonoma Developmental Center residents because the center’s internal police agency didn’t ask them to. “They have separate, independent jurisdiction,” he told the Index-Tribune.

  Wrong. The state and local law enforcement agencies have concurrent jurisdiction. (Penal Code Section 368.5.) There is only one reason why Sheriff Freitas left the investigation to the under-trained internal police (at SDC) with a long history of giving in to pressure to look the other way: he decided to.

  Greg deGiere,

  Public Policy Director

  The Arc and United

  Cerebral Palsy in

  California, Sacramento