Sonoma County Latino leaders give feedback on law enforcement oversight

A task force appointed in the wake of 13-year-old Andy Lopez’s fatal shooting by a sheriff’s deputy outlined on Friday its work over the past year to an audience of Latino community leaders, earning a mostly positive response.

Members of the Community and Local Law Enforcement Task Force presented the ?21 draft recommendations by the panel - including the call for civilian review of police shootings - at a lunch meeting of Los Cien, a community group formed more than five years ago.

Herman Hernandez, the group’s president, said the occasion - the first unveiling of the task force’s package of proposals outside of its regular public meetings - “really gave insight” into the panel’s work and fulfilled Los Cien’s purpose of “bringing the community all together.”

Some blunt questions, however, came on cards submitted from the crowd of 150 people, Latino and white, at the Flamingo Resort in Santa Rosa.

“Who is the client?” one person asked, referring to the proposed independent auditor office, which would include attorneys empowered to investigate shootings by Sonoma County sheriff’s personnel.

“The client is the county,” said task force member Eric Koenigshofer, an attorney and former county supervisor. There’s no conflict of interest, he said, because the auditor would conduct an “analytical inquiry” into “the content and the quality of the (law enforcement) investigation.”

The auditor’s authority would be limited to the Sheriff’s Office, which polices the county’s unincorporated area, and would not cover city police departments, Koenigshofer said.

Lopez was shot on Oct. 22, 2013, by a deputy who mistook the airsoft BB gun he was carrying near his Moorland Avenue home for an assault rifle. The youth’s death prompted protests and an ongoing civil rights lawsuit against the county brought by Lopez’s parents.

At least one question Friday touched on the tumult after the shooting, which exposed deep levels of mistrust of law enforcement especially in the local Latino community.

Given the long human history of “class warfare,” one person asked about the task force’s top priority.

Caroline Bañuelos, the task force chairwoman, said a major goal was “to build back trust between the community and law enforcement,” saying it was “all about bringing those two parties together.”

The civilian review body is the second top priority, she said.

Task force member Judy Rice said the “greatest enemy to moving forward” is polarization among advocates for competing proposals. “Nobody’s view is the right view,” she said. “The other guy just might have something to say.”

At which point Koenigshofer prompted the only laugh of the day, saying there was black and white and “in the middle there’s 50 shades of gray,” a play on the steamy book series and movie that opened last week.

Another person asked if an independent auditor has ever made a finding against a police officer.

Robert Edmonds, vice chairman of the task force, said the independent investigations could prompt changes in law enforcement “policies and procedures,” which could lead to discipline of officers.

Task force member Sylvia Lemus said she hoped for “small incremental changes” over time.

Lisa Maldonado, a local labor leader, bluntly noted that beyond establishing “transparency” over law enforcement conduct, “the goal is to stop these killings.”

Lopez’s death was the latest of 17 Sonoma County officer-?involved shootings since 2000, according to a tally by Edmonds based on newspaper archives and grand jury reports.

In an interview, Maldonado said it is not easy to prevent such tragedies, “but it’s certainly time. .?.?. (It’s) something we have to grapple with.”

Jaime Peñaherrera of Los Cien said in an interview that he’d like to see clearer time frames for implementing the task force’s recommendations, as well as measurements of success.

“How do we know if we’re making a difference?” he asked, also expressing concern about the absence of a budget for implementing the recommendations.

Angie Perez of Santa Rosa, attending her first Los Cien meeting, said she was impressed that the loss of “one life has caused all these people to come together.”

“That’s the beautiful part of it,” she said.

Linda Mayberry Chavez, a mother of two from Healdsburg, said she had been shocked by Lopez’s death.

“This is a human life,” she said. “What are we going to do about it? We all have to look inward and consider what we’re going to do.”

The meeting Friday “allows all of us to go out in the community and be ambassadors for positive change,” Chavez said.

The task force will hold about 15 public meetings before every city council in the county, as well as the Santa Rosa City School board and various community organizations through March and early April, said Oscar Chavez, assistant director of the county Human Services Department.

A decision on the group’s final recommendations is expected in April, followed by presentation on May 12 to the Board of Supervisors, which established the task force in December 2013, two months after Lopez was killed.