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LA County Sheriff Lee Baca sworn for 4th term
Sheriff Lee Baca at a press conference at the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department June 8, 2007 in Monterey Park, California.
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LA County Sheriff Lee Baca sworn for 4th term
LA County Sheriff Lee Baca sworn for 4th term
Governor-elect Jerry Brown administered the oath of office to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. Baca’s entering his fourth term as sheriff.
Brown swore Baca in at a packed conference room in Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles.
The governor-elect, who says he’s known Baca for a long time, said what many of the police and politicians present already knew about Baca’s unusual style of law enforcement leadership. “We got a tough guy, but we got a lover at the same time.”
The 68-year-old sheriff likes to talk a lot about helping homeless people and rehabilitating inmates. He reiterated that in his address. “How can you expect to send someone to jail or prison for whatever period time, give them no educatioN and expect they are going to come out better than when they went in. It won’t happen.”
Baca promised more help for inmates in his fourth term. His tenure has not been without controversy; it includes accusations of abuse of power when he ordered an investigation into a case that involved a campaign donor. But the sheriff’s biggest challenge may be diminishing budgets that threaten to further shrink his department.
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