Hot Seat: Bill Gore

2:00 a.m. July 29, 2009

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore - These are edited and condensed remarks from a recent interview which the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune conducted with San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore.

The new state budget calls for the release of 27,000 inmates from state prisons. What does that mean for San Diego County?

I think our worst fears have been avoided. They will release people in the last year of their sentences. They will be nonviolent, nonserious and non-sex offenders, starting with the oldest inmates. That I don’t see as a big problem. One of the areas that will impact us is the shifting of what they used to call wobblers — cases that could go misdemeanor or felony — to misdemeanors, which in effect leaves them in our county jails.

What is the status of your department’s investigation into the incident at the Francine Busby fundraiser? What have you learned so far?

I can’t tell you much. It’s currently under investigation by our internal affairs unit. The district attorney is doing a separate investigation looking at criminal charges to be brought in it. I’ve consistently said it’s just not appropriate to discuss it until we complete our investigation.

Why can’t the 911 tape be released?

We look at that as all part of the investigation. One of the things I’ve tried to stress since I joined the Sheriff’s Department is transparency. I think you see that. You can now see online things as far as use of force, our internal affairs investigations, statistics. We go beyond every other law enforcement agency in the county with what we make public. But I have to draw the line when it comes down to ongoing investigations. I don’t care if it’s a murder investigation or an internal affairs investigation.

What kinds of problems have there been with gun shows, and would you favor a ban on gun shows, such as those at the Del Mar Fairgrounds?

I’d have to do more research before I said if I was for or against a ban. We do look at gun shows and try to ensure that the laws are being followed.

You hear about the gun show exception, where people can go in and buy large amounts of weapons. There has been, I know, scrutiny by [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] and other agencies, and the Sheriff’s Department, of some of these issues, especially in light of the fact that we know a lot of guns that are being used for all the violence in Mexico are coming from the United States, although most of our research shows they’re not coming from California. They’re coming from other states, but ending up in Mexico.

Can you clarify your department’s policy on immigration enforcement?

If in the course of our law enforcement responsibilities we’re in contact with people, and during the course of that contact it becomes apparent that we have reason to believe they could be in the country illegally, we will notify Border Patrol and detain them, for less than an hour. We have no authority to arrest them [for immigration offenses]. The alternative is that if we stop them for something, and it turns out not to be a state violation, that we just ignore [a possible immigration violation] and just walk away. We’re trying to walk the line between being responsible and turning my deputies into immigration officers, without destroying the trust that is critical to us between the minority community and the Sheriff’s Department.

What do you consider to be the most serious law enforcement problem in the county right now?

Well I think it’s important to point out that with all the doom and gloom,
crime is at a 25-year low in San Diego County. So the biggest challenge we have probably is the budgets, the diminishing revenues. We cut $25 million out of our budget last year. And we don’t know exactly where it’s going to come come out of this year. You don’t save $25 million cutting tablets and paper and pencils. You do that by cutting salaries and benefits. We downsized the number of deputies we have. We have aggressively gone after federal grants, and have been very successful in getting them, to try to offset some of our losses. And we’re working to use technology like we’ve never used it before. We’ve got some great things going on as far as crime analysis and using DNA. Our budgets are diminishing. We’ve got to deal with it. It forces you to prioritize what you’re doing, which is always healthy.

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