A sheriff who is a leading candidate for governor of California hid the causes of a mounting epidemic of jail deaths behind a culture of cover-up and retaliation, a former captain in the department said in her first interview since she filed a lawsuit outlining her claims.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco ordered Captain Victoria Flores not to answer questions from a civil grand jury investigating jail conditions, Flores alleges. Another of her bosses told her not to leave a paper trail about a detainee’s overdose. And the department didn’t discipline deputies who were captured on video knocking a man unconscious.
Those are just some of the claims Flores, a 30-year veteran of the department, made in a July lawsuit and in an exclusive interview with The Desert Sun, a member of the USA TODAY Network. Her allegations support previous reporting by The Desert Sun and The New York Times that Bianco’s cost-cutting left the jails understaffed with inexperienced guards as they became among the deadliest large jails in the nation. And they come as Bianco steps onto a wider political stage with a run for governor in the nation’s most populous state.
“The inmates in the county’s detention facilities were being abused,” Flores said, “and the abuse was covered up without proper discipline.”
Flores charges in her lawsuit that Bianco fired her in 2024 in retaliation for conflicts she had with the sheriff’s administration, including her unwillingness to remain quiet over staff and...
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