Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Mendocino Sheriff Matt Kendall Addresses ‘Misinformation’ from Social Justice Group Used to Justify Proposed Audit

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The following is a statement from Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall released on the agency’s Facebook page:

Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall discusses first days, plans and  priorities – The Ukiah Daily Journal
Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall

I’d like to talk with you today about an agenda item coming up in tomorrow’s Mendocino County Board of Supervisors’ meeting. There is a presentation scheduled proposing to audit the Sheriff’s Office Budget. Specifically, Item 6d:

“Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of Presentation by South Coast Organizing for Radical Equity Encouraging Independent Performance and Fiscal Audit of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, Including Jail (Sponsor: Supervisor Williams)”

I understand most of you don’t have the time to listen to an entire day of BOS meetings, but most of us do scroll through Facebook and other social media platforms getting bits and pieces of news. I’m writing this post today in hopes that we can separate fact from fiction.

What I’d like to bring to your attention is the misinformation in the South Coast Organizing for Radical Equity (SCORE) documents that will no doubt start spreading online by people who didn’t take time to check the facts. While it appears this is a small group of well-intending community members, I think it’s important that all voices are heard and the truth is disseminated to all. I also think we have taken our eyes away from how we represent and protect the victims of crime.

Let me be perfectly clear that I welcome a fair and honest audit conducted by individuals that understand budgets and don’t have a political bias. I don’t say this to be condescending, but it concerns me that while our budget is a public document on the County of Mendocino website (https://www.mendocinocounty.org/…/39202/637414011645070000 ) and plainly states our budget from the General Fund has been between $23,282.457 and $24,386,395 from Fiscal Year 17-18 through Fiscal Year 20-21, that SCORE indicated “public protection” has a budget of over $81 Million, which is grossly inaccurate. Combining the Sheriff’s Office Budget with the budgets of the *District Attorney, *Public Defender, *Alternate Defender, *Child Support Services, *Probation, *Agriculture, *Planning and Building Services, *Court Collections, *Grand Jury, *Conflict Defender, *Fire Agency Support, *Disaster Recovery and *Animal Care Services (HHSA) is unacceptably misleading.

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Is the intention of the audit to audit each of these departments?

There are a few more areas that have inaccuracies I’d like to shed some light on.

The group known as SCORE, have a graphic on their Facebook page that states “57% of people locked in the Mendocino County Jail have not been convicted.” This seems particularly disingenuous since the average person is very aware that inmates are housed in county jails between the time of their arrest to the time they can either be released on a promise to appear, make bail or go before a judge.

SCORE states we have a daily jail population of 338. Our maximum capacity is 305 and the actual daily jail population number is around 250, which of course changes daily. In fact, we currently have the $0 Bail schedule in which low-level and nonviolent offenders are simply released. If there is an underlying public safety issue, we have the ability to contact a Mendocino County Superior Court Judge and explain the circumstances. The judge makes a decision and sets bail according to their decision.

I also wanted to point out another graphic SCORE posted stating 72% of all arrests we make are for low-level nonviolent offenses. I’m not sure why they choose the date range 2013-2019, but let’s look at what low-level and nonviolent offenses currently mean. Many of these crimes directly affect families and our quality of life. Also many of these arrests especially now are due to arrest warrants which have been issued by a judge. An arrest warrant is a court order for a peace officer to take someone into custody. Again the judge makes that decision.

Often the goal of law enforcement is to deal with problems while they are small and keep them from getting big. It’s like anything else in this world, you pay now or you pay later, however, later always comes with interest.

Auto theft, vandalism, simple assault, narcotic sales, thefts of many types are considered low-level offenses. Why do we deal with these issues? The reason is simple. When a person walks down the street vandalizing cars and we’re called we must take action to stop the behaviors. If we don’t deal with it, a resident will. I can’t count the number of times I have been told “if the deputies won’t deal with this I will”. We can’t have good residents attempting to do the work of law enforcement. It isn’t fair to anyone including the suspect. If one of our residents attempts to stop this activity with no training, I fear the violence could cause the victim to become a focus of enforcement. We can’t allow people to be placed in this situation.

If people don’t want low-level or nonviolent offenses to be crimes, please urge changes within legislation. I have a hard time believing people want their cars to be vandalized or their items stolen from them. I know people who would lose their homes over the theft of $500.00 (which is a misdemeanor in California). It seems when we discuss low-level crimes everyone has forgotten we have victims who didn’t want to be victimized.

We all realize we have a lot of “asks” of public safety. From alert and warning and evacuations for fires, floods and other natural disasters to narcotics and mental health issues. This has been stacked on top of the daily duties peace officers complete. Public safety continues to take these problems on.

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For those of you who took the time to get this far into my post, I appreciate your time and welcome your comments. I never want it said that I’m not in touch with the people I serve.

One of my biggest concerns with this request is that the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is being treated as if we are seeing the urban issues that make headlines daily are a problem here. I am meeting with people and groups all over our county and not a single resident has asked for less law enforcement. To the contrary, all have been asking for more. Let’s not forget that Mendocino County is a rural community with different needs and concerns than areas like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and other large urban areas. And yet today, we are facing 2021 problems with 1970’s personnel numbers.

During this audit, I will ask we also compare the growth in all departments in Mendocino County over the past 50 years and see where public safety comes in. I’m afraid that is the data that isn’t being discussed. As we see more drug abuse, mental health issues, violence, and crime affecting our county let’s begin looking at who is responsible for what, it’s clear law enforcement has taken on roles we were never meant to. I have made it a goal to get back to basics and that will require decisions to be made about who is responsible for their piece of the puzzle. It will take all agencies within the county working together as a team to make a difference.

Mendocino County has been and will continue to be a great place to live and work it’s because we never have the luxury of being divided. We are all seeing division in the national narrative, it is to the point I rarely see the national news and choose to focus on our local news sources. The national narrative has been one of finger-pointing and blame to the point it‘s hurting the people our government is sworn to serve. We simply don’t have enough to go around and in order to get the job done we have to work together and our leaders have to lead in a direction of unity. Being a leader and being a politician are often two completely different things.

Being a leader often causes us to make hard decisions. We can’t forget crime has victims and although many want to forget they exist, we can’t simply turn a blind eye to them. It appears we are focusing on problems that we all agree need to be dealt with, however, often I simply don’t see the victim at the table during these discussions and I believe we are missing the point without them there.

I am constantly meeting with people and groups throughout our county, people who want to make positive improvements and improve the safety for all who live and visit Mendocino County. None of them have asked for less law enforcement to the contrary they have been calling for more.

Thank you,

Sheriff Matt Kendall

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7 COMMENTS

  1. This is a thoughtful commentary by Sheriff Kendall. It’s fact orientated. Rare, in the political neck of the woods were very many of us live. I’d disagree with only one thing that the Sheriff has said; that is his assertion that SCORE is a “small group of well-intending community members.” SCORE stands for south coast origination for radical equity. They may be small, but they’re not well intended, whoever the devil they are. “Radical equity?” Those of us who are cognizant of the national headlines and chaos for the past year have seen and heard these words far too often. They stand for political strife and non-democratic, power grabbing by mostly anonymous mobs of the self-righteous, fantasy Marxists. Now, it appears they want to bring the street politics of Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and New York City to our county by attacking the sheriff’s department on false, financial issues. Significantly, they always initially attack the police, for once the police are diminished they can go after everything else.
    Ted Williams is my supervisor and he has sponsored this group’s accusations in their appearance before the at the Board of Supervisors today. What the hell was he thinking, and, God forbid, is he sympathetic to them?

  2. Ted Williams doesn’t know what he’s for & what he isn’t for. He’s Milk Toast!! He’s conformational with the way he answers some questions and seems to think the people are just going to believe whatever he says. Be extremely careful of this man!

  3. If what Sheriff Kendall says is true, facts shall prevail over liberal fictions which so often steeped in diverse hate these days, can then be discredited by said facts.

    Even the most cursory fact check supports Mr. Kendall’s position. However, our society allows *everyone* a voice. Even those who are wrong. Supervisor Williams supporting Free Speech should not be considered any kind of endorsement. EVERYONE deserves to be heard. If nothing else but for them to discredit themself so process can carry on. And exonerate the accused.

  4. Federal agents, Attorney general, supervising district attorney, please investigate Sheriff coroner case#Coro 7 – 390 Captain Matthew Kendall is listed on death investigation report as illegally tampering with evidence by giving previously seized coroners property to Decedent’s mother, 2 days after shooting to frame defendant Michael Marlin of murder by destroying the evidence before it could be tested for gunshot residue. That’s not all. It appears that evidence technician Scofield actually described how he tampered with audio recording statements on his report. A preliminary report was done by an audio expert that said this officer statement is highly suspicious. It’s apparent he did not want to have any accountability for the destruction of evidence in Michael Marlins case.in the same case officer Donahue lied to the jury about having three exculpatory statements, two of them that the defendant shot at Michael and one of the statements was that he shot after his mother was attacked and then the decedent was shooting back!!! Keith Faulder tried to expose this officer misconduct while interviewing Jacob Donahue. every time Keith inquired about gunshot residue testing the district attorney would object in the judge would call for recess suppressing officer misconduct evidence from being on record.

    Please review Mendocino county Sheriff complaint 21-7

    There appears to be at least 3/4 safai report in defendant Michael Marlins case

    • Yea they can thank Cps for this one Michelle steckler and Erika Luna taking children on false allegations and lyin to the judge because this came out in perfect timing, there is corruption here and now people can open there eyes n help our communities who can’t defend themselves because of it. No one but grieving parents with stories of horror and children with unanswered questions can only understand the pain these monsters put family’s thru when they lie and take children and parents who have never been accused before turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with the pain so then they target in on that and issue services more then needed to get kids back but have no intentions of givin them back and destroy family’s

  5. score isn’t a bunch of marxists. believe me. they are well intended folks. the racial equity is a hard one because we all know some amount of racism exists in all communities. but most communities are poor and we’ll, that’s where we gotta come together. the racial divide is once again being used to keep everyone fighting each other. it’s as old as apple pie.

  6. FBI please investigate Kendall tampering with seized coroners property in Coroner’s case Coro7-390. Officers Verdot, Donahue, Brixie, Scofield,falsifying reports, falsifying evidence property report with evidence list that is contrary to report,lieutenant Noe and detective caudillo ripping open an evidence bag and getting rid of a bloody T-shirt and pants that evidence technician Cynthia Bartley said, on a 12 – 23 – 2020 telephone call, that there’s no evidence that the detective ever dropped off the evidence to the evidence room, framing Marlin for murder!

    Kendall and Barney are monsters!

    Coroner Case coro 7 – 390

    FBI please investigate!

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Matt LaFever
Matt LaFeverhttps://mendofever.com/
For the past seven years, Matt LaFever has covered the North Coast of California in both print and radio news. A Humboldt State graduate, he has lived in the Emerald Triangle for nearly 20 years. His reporting spans local issues like crime and wildfires. When not writing, Matt is an avid outdoorsman, exploring Northern California’s rugged landscapes. Reach out to him at matthewplafever@gmail.com.

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