Jerry Threet outlines vision for post monitoring Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office

A San Francisco deputy city attorney slated to become the first independent monitor of Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office practices and internal investigations said that he views his primary mission as ensuring those inquiries are fair and thorough.

Jerry Threet, 55, said there will be a learning curve for him as he builds his knowledge of investigation standards and law enforcement practices. In an interview Thursday, the first since the county announced his selection, Threet said that he applied for the job because he feels the heightened interest nationwide to improve law enforcement’s relationship with a diverse population is an important movement.

“I’ve always had a professional interest in areas where I could assist disadvantaged communities and help government be responsive to people,” Threet said.

The board will cast votes March 15 to make Threet’s appointment as director of the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach official. He is slated to start the job April 11.

Sheriff Steve Freitas, who was on one of three interview panels that considered the top three candidates, said that it was important to him that Threet had moved to Sonoma County before he applied for the job, which to him demonstrated a commitment to becoming part of the community.

“He seems to be very well qualified,” Freitas said.

Freitas said that he and Threet have met in person, exchanged emails, cellphone numbers and schedules and are making plans to begin a series of conversations about how to work with one another.

Eventually, the Sheriff’s Office will dedicate a lieutenant and an administrative aide to work closely with the monitor in order to share information and build a collaborative system of fielding citizen complaints. For now, Freitas said that he will work with Threet while the attorney is building the office from the ground up.

“In the very beginning I will be involved, absolutely, because this is very new and I need to make sure that it’s the best thing we can have for the county and the Sheriff’s Office,” Freitas said.

Threet said that he’s also been handed a clear mission of spearheading public discussions about law enforcement practices to both educate the public about how things work but also to ask questions about how people want things to work.

“What are the policies of the sheriff, what are the policies guiding use of force and how they play out in situations?” Threet said. “Is this how the public thinks they should be functioning?”

The law enforcement oversight office resulted from county and public discussions in the wake the 2013 fatal shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a sheriff’s deputy.

Threet’s job as a deputy city attorney in San Francisco in large part involved initiating lawsuits as a member of the affirmative litigation task force, a group of attorneys looking for businesses violating people’s rights and city code.

“I sue folks who are doing illegal things,” said Threet, whose last day on the San Francisco job is March 25.

In one case, Threet sued a company called GMC Janitorial, which employed mostly Latino immigrants, after an investigation revealed the company had failed to pay its workers health benefits required by the city.

A judge in 2014 ordered GMC Janitorial pay $1.34 million to about 275 former and current employees. Threet said that the city arranged for a payment plan so the company could continue operating to ensure people didn’t lose their jobs.

Threet was in charge of cases involving the Tenderloin, a diverse district he said has the lowest average income in the city. Many of his cases started with police officers who observed business wrongdoings, such as substandard living conditions in single-resident occupancy hotels.

He said he is very familiar with state laws regarding law enforcement personnel files because of his role bringing officers to the stand as witnesses, and having to review their work histories and defend their testimony in court.

Threet said that he has met with Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff’s Association leaders.

“Their concern seems to be that any audit or review doesn’t bring a bias against officers to the table,” Threet said. “I think my history and who I am as a person should go a long way to calm that. I don’t have a bias against police officers, but I also don’t have a bias toward officers.”

Threet grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and lived in Berkeley for more than a decade until August when he and his family moved to Santa Rosa. Threet said he and his husband are looking for a permanent home in Sebastopol. They hope to send their daughters, ages 5 and 7, to Sebastopol Charter School because of its Waldorf- inspired curriculum.

Threet said his daughters have different racial backgrounds, with one being white and the other biracial, and that has provided a strong motivation for him to work on issues promoting equality.

“I can see the differences in how my daughters are treated because of that racial makeup that they bring,” Threet said. “It’s made me think about those things very closely and carefully.”

As the office gets off the ground, one matter that had been unsettled was whether the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach would monitor complaints and incidents involving probation officers.

Probation Chief Bob Ochs said he reports to the Sonoma County Superior Court judiciary, which has authority to appoint and dismiss him. Ochs manages his budget, which is approved by Sonoma County supervisors. Any involvement of Threet’s office would have to be approved by the judiciary and also possibly state attorneys, Ochs said.

Records show the probation office has not received a citizen complaint since 2013. The office received three non-criminal complaints that year and all were determined to be unfounded.

Ochs said that his office has a process in place to receive complaints and investigate personnel matters involving probation officers, who also run juvenile hall. Although some probation officers carry firearms, not all do.

“If in fact the county wanted that body to have involvement (in probation internal investigations) it would have to be in an advisory capacity,” Ochs said. “I personally wouldn’t have an objection to that in concept.”

Ochs was on a panel with Freitas and Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch that interviewed the final three candidates, including Threet, because of the possibility that he will work with the oversight office in the future.

Ochs said that Threet appears to have “the capacity to build credibility with the groups he needs to build it with.”

“No one is going to come into that spot with people immediately trusting you from either side, you have to build credibility,” Ochs said. “It’s going to be up to him.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.