Support Your Local Police

After one deputy confessed to a double murder was found to have failed his psych exam, the Alameda, California sheriff's department reviewed its files, and they found that they had to put ⅒ of their deputies on leave for also failing their psych exams.

If you think that law enforcement gives a flying f%$# in a rolling doughnut about the quality of personnel on their force, and hence the quality of their law enforcement, you were misinformed:

We now know that all was perhaps not so well with the Alameda County Sheriff's deputy whom the sheriff's office had previously said had a spotless record, after he turned himself in for a double murder.

The shocking double-homicide occurred in a quiet subdivision in Dublin on September 7, and 24-year-old sheriff's deputy Devin Williams Jr. was quickly suspected of the crime and soon turned himself in to the agency he worked for. Within days we learned that it was an act of passion, and Williams was "blinded by love," his mother says, amid an affair he was having with an older, married woman.

The victims were 42-year-old Maria Tran, a psychiatric nurse, and 57-year-old Benison Tran, her husband. Mrs. Tran reportedly met Williams while she was at work — presumably when he was a patient — at John George Psychiatric Hospital in San Leandro. The Alameda County Sheriff's Office never confirmed whether Williams had any history of mental illness, and all we knew was that Williams was not hired by the Stockton Police Department for unknown reasons after the conclusion of a one-year probationary period in January 2021.

Now, as KTVU reports, we are learning that Williams received a "D. Not Suited" grade on his psychological evaluation for the deputy job. And the sheriff's office is saying that they had been operating under the belief that "D. Not Suited" evaluations did not preclude individuals from being hired, but they have now learned that is not the case. This has resulted in 47 deputies — about 10% of the force in Alameda County — being put on paid leave pending new evaluations.

………

The fact that 10% of the deputies on the force were given these unsatisfactory psych evaluations has caused an uproar, in particular among civil rights advocates with concerns about how these deputies may have handled their cases. Civil rights attorney Adante Pointer spoke to KTVU, wondering aloud how many cases might need to be reopened based on this revelation. And another attorney working on a consent decree at the Santa Rita Jail, Kara Janssen, found the news "deeply concerning."

"Deeply concerning."  Gee, you think!

………

The 47 officers now on leave are receiving full pay pending their second opinions, but some are questioning whether these second opinions can even be trusted.

Let me remove any doubt here:  The new evaluations cannot be trusted.

………

The department previously said that his [the double murderer cop] record was "immaculate" and that he had passed all of his necessary evaluations.

This is a pretty good indication of how serious this department is about the quality of its personnel:  Not at all.