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By Jeff Horseman
The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The unfiltered thoughts of Riverside County’s sheriff are a mouse click away.
And when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, Chad Bianco is clear. The virus is real and people should be responsible, he said, but COVID-19 is not a lethal threat to the healthy, and don’t expect his deputies to crack down on the maskless or business owners. He also doesn’t plan to get vaccinated against the virus.
In a Dec. 4 YouTube video that gained national attention, Bianco — while asking the public to mask up and socially distance — accused Gov. Gavin Newsom of trying to strongarm counties into enforcing his stay-at-home order, which went into effect in Southern California on Dec. 6.
“Leaders do not threaten, attempt to intimidate, or cause fear,” Bianco said on the video. “Bullies do.”
As sheriff, Bianco oversees a department of more than 3,000 employees that is the main law enforcement agency in America’s 10th most-populated county. Through contracts, his department polices 16 of the county’s 28 cities and also oversees five jails and handles county courthouse security.
As an elected official, Bianco can’t be fired. In May, Bianco, a registered Republican, told Riverside County supervisors he would not enforce now-defunct county business restrictions.
“I refuse to make criminals out of business owners, single moms and otherwise healthy individuals for exercising their constitutional rights,” he said to cheers from foes of the rules, which included a mask mandate.
Bianco’s defiance has made him a hero of lockdown foes nationwide and a popular figure in conservative media. He’s been interviewed on Fox News and One America News Network, and the Riverside County Libertarian Party earlier this month formally saluted him.
But the executive director of the Riverside County Medical Association worries the public is hearing the wrong message from the sheriff.
“We were disappointed (in Bianco’s YouTube video) because we feel that that gives an open invitation to the public to go ahead and have events outside their homes ... that we know are spreader events,” Dolores Green said.
She added: “We know that cocaine is illegal. What if we have someone like the sheriff say ‘we’re not gonna enforce this’ ... personal belief should not come into this.”
In an interview Monday, Dec. 14, Bianco said Green is acting “as if you’re just assuming that people are just running around being irresponsible. I would like to know where she frequents ... you don’t go anywhere without seeing people in masks.”
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The sheriff’s willingness to make bold public statements isn’t limited to the coronavirus.
During a June demonstration in downtown Riverside stemming from George Floyd’s death, Bianco took a knee with protesters in solidarity. The peaceful scene later faded, with police using tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets to push back the crowd amid exploding fireworks.
Bianco also isn’t afraid to fire back at critics on social media. When someone tweeted “a real patriot would do his job” and enforce Newsom’s orders, Bianco wrote: “Wow. You are the epitome of what is wrong with our voting system. The greatest country in the world is doomed if the majority is ever that shallow.”
Bianco said he doesn’t respond to most social media criticism, focusing on the ones that are making “blatantly false statements” or are “flat-out disingenuous.”
COVID enforcement dicey for cops
Bianco isn’t the only Southern California sheriff who isn’t planning to crack down on COVID-19 scofflaws. Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said last month his department “has taken an education-first approach with regard to public-health orders” and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is taking a similar approach.
Jim Bueermann, a retired Redlands police chief, past president of the National Police Foundation and a senior fellow with the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University, isn’t surprised at law enforcement’s reluctance to enforce coronavirus mandates.
“If you look at the high-profile incidents that created protests and civil unrest, it’s almost always been around lower-grade offenses,” Bueermann said, citing the case of Eric Garner. The Black man died in 2014 after a New York City cop put him in a chokehold during a confrontation about selling loose cigarettes in what is seen as an example of police brutality against people of color.
Enforcing coronavirus rules creates a dilemma for police who might be stretched thin, Bueermann said, adding that a lack of clarity over COVID-19 rules — “I can get on a plane and sit next to you and fly, but I can’t eat at restaurant at a table inside that’s 10 feet away” — and elected leaders’ hypocrisy — Newsom dined at a Napa Valley restaurant in violation of his state’s guidelines — doesn’t help.
Sheriff won’t take vaccine
A former sheriff’s lieutenant elected to a four-year term, Bianco defeated incumbent Stan Sniff in 2018 and officially took office in January 2019.
He did so with the support of the Riverside Sheriffs’ Association, the union representing deputies and other law enforcement personnel. The union backed his YouTube video, saying in a statement that the department should not “replace inmates in jail with business owners, single moms and healthy individuals who are expressing their constitutional rights.”
After a complaint from a prisoners’ rights group, a federal judge in July approved a plan for coronavirus testing, cleaning, and social distancing at county jails that included removing 292 jail beds to keep inmates apart. Bianco has refused to let inmates out early to prevent infections, saying in April: “If you are afraid to go to jail and catch the virus, then don’t go to jail, don’t break the law.”
Bianco said his department takes a number of steps to stop the virus, from regularly cleaning surfaces to testing arrestees when they’re booked and random testing of jail inmates. Deputies have been told to wear masks and socially distance, but “unfortunately, part of law enforcement is that isn’t (always) possible,” Bianco said.
If deputies are wearing a mask, it can be hard for a suspect to hear them, he said.
“You can’t wear a mask and talk on the radio. It just doesn’t work ... If you have to get verbal compliance from a suspect, they have to understand what you’re saying.”
In a debate with a doctor on Twitter this week, Bianco said he does not plan to get the vaccine. On Thursday, Bianco said he does not get flu shots either but is not anti-vaccination.
The sheriff also said he does not attempt to impose his opinion on others and that his beliefs do not influence how he runs the department.
Bianco said the point he was making to the doctor was that there are other virus precautions besides the vaccine.
“I am doing everything I can to make sure my immune system is not the cause of my demise,” said Bianco, 53. “I eat well, exercise, I keep my body in top physical and mental condition. With that, I don’t need a vaccine for the virus.”
In an earlier interview, Bianco said he doesn’t think the pandemic is a hoax.
“I know this is serious,” he said. “But what we are learning is it’s really not serious unless you have underlying conditions.”
While older adults and those who have diabetes, high blood pressure or are obese are more likely to become severely ill or die from COVID-19, 21% of more than 3,000 18- to 34-year-olds who got the virus wound up in intensive care, 10% needed a ventilator and 2.7% died, according to a study cited by Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Two of Bianco’s deputies — David Werksman, 51, who was assigned to the administrative office, and Terrell Young, 52, who is believed to have been infected by a jail inmate — died from COVID-19 in April.
While mourning their loss, Bianco said he resisted saying “The entire county gets locked down and nobody’s coming out of their houses.’ ... There is far too much emotional response that is going along with this virus instead of real rational common-sense solutions and answers.”
In November, Cal/ OSHA fined the department almost $18,000 for violating coronavirus regulations at its French Valley jail. The county is appealing the citations, and Bianco said the state inspector “ignored everything that we presented to him ... he was only there to issue citations.”
Green, of the medical association, said leaders like Bianco need to be on the same page when it comes to communicating with the public about the virus.
“If we have the same message, the people would understand,” she said. “All these conflicting messages, people don’t know what to believe. So they just pick and choose.”
(c)2020 The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.)