Sonoma County’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach is taking issue with the punishments handed out in four disciplinary cases. The Sonoma County sheriff watchdog audited three-dozen disciplinary cases involving Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office employees accused of violating department policy. It found more than half of the investigations were incomplete. And, it says the punishments in four disciplinary cases are insufficient. The four cases include a deputy’s excessive use of force in 2020, a county jail correctional deputy’s excessive use of force in 2019, an investigation into dispatchers transmitting inaccurate information to deputies in 2020, and a deputy found to have violated rules against having close personal relationships with confidential informants in 2019.
IOLERO Expresses Issues with Cases of Discipline within the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office
In one case, the watchdog agency believes a deputy should have been fired for an incident on Halloween in 2020. Body camera footage shows the Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy press his gun into the back of a man’s head while responding to a report of a fight and a stabbing in Boyes Hot Springs. The deputy then told the man to shut up and threatened to shoot him. Meanwhile, in broken English, the man tried to explain that he was actually the person who called 911. The deputy received a suspension and a pay cut. Sonoma County’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach says firing the deputy would have been the appropriate response.