Sheriffs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

our main story tonight concerns law enforcement and specifically the job of Sheriff that's not to be confused with Sheriff the proper way to describe Sher dressed like a cowgirl that's a sheriff this is a sheriff it's a key difference you need to learn now when you hear the word sheriff most of us have two immediate associations one at Western lawmen who handled cattle rustlin and other livestock related crimes and to Joe Arpaio the infamously anti-immigrant Sheriff and this next clip actually includes both a Sheriff Joe gives an update on a suspect nabbed through an interesting investigation finally he decided that he wanted to travel to Phoenix to meet our undercover agent and to have sex with his horse yeah yeah that sounds truly bizarre until you realize that the horse in question was this one so you get it right I mean I'm not saying on a horse or anything but if you are gonna a horse it should definitely be this one now would I travel to Phoenix to that horse well it depends doesn't it how much of flights if it's a $300 round-trip of course not but if it's a hundred and seventy dollars or something like that and the hot daddy horse seemed open to it what definitely my wife and I have a list of five people that were allowed to have sex with her sir all completely understandable handsome kind men and miner at that horse five time so it seems kind of ideal as a situation anyway sheriff's there are actually more than 3,000 of them around the country and generally speaking they run law enforcement at a county level cities or towns might have their own police departments as well but in many areas sheriff's are the only law enforcement around and they oversee a lot of officers around 25 percent of local law enforcement officers work for sheriff's that's one in four cops and depending on where you live your sheriff might be good bad or a total weirdo and I will not say which ones are the weirdos because that would be unfair to Kenny Boone who until recently was sheriff in Florence County South Carolina where he made this incredible PSA they said it wouldn't hurt they said one one hurts they lied I'm sheriff Kenny Ben please please talk to your kids about drugs talk to your kids about drugs what are you doing and it's so magnificently weird I want 900 more versions of that PSA where Kenny boon implores to talk to our kids about other things talk to your kids about slugs please talk to your kids about rogues people I'm begging you to talk to your kids about bugs they said what lick wouldn't hurt they'll add the role of Sheriff is a unique position because sheriff's are actually elected which means they often produce campaign ads in fact last year a candidate in South Carolina produced a frankly unforgettable ads now you're about to think that you know where this is going but you're actually gonna need to brace yourself for a hard turn I want to tell you at the start of my campaign some things that politicians would try to hide things my opponents may try to use to tarnish my integrity as a 16 year old I received a ticket for not having my driver's license in my possession I've been in fender benders that were my fault and about 10 years ago as a young police officer I attended a law enforcement Halloween party dressed as ruthless drug kingpin big Meech Flenory to disparage your criminal whose actions hurt our community and country that was a different time Wow for the record as well the different time he's talking about was ten years ago when blackface was still widely considered and this is true bad and once in office sheriff's holds much more power than you may realize so with over a thousand sheriff elections this year possibly where you live we thought tonight might be a good time to take a look at this job and let's start with the fact that in most states sheriff's duties are enshrined in the state constitution meaning that their job description can have a certain old-timey flavor for instance in many places sheriff's can still technically form a posse meaning that they can enlist volunteers to help with tasks ranging from providing security to pursuing fugitives and those Posse members can be basically anyone which is how this actual school shooting drill came to include an arguably famous face this is every parent's worst nightmare [Music] these men are learning how to fight the next school shooter and oddly enough their coaches 1990s action film legend Steven Seagal for every second that goes by I told you this you could have dead children yeah that's deputy Steven Seagal I'm watching Steven Seagal conduct an active shooter drill while discussing dead children he's a lot like looking at a picture of Steven Seagal's current hair you immediately think to yourself this is highly unusual and upsettingly dark still still one of the greatest powers that sheriffs have is to set law enforcement priorities in their County and that in and of itself is not entirely a bad thing some sheriff's have advanced genuinely progressive ideas like D prioritizing low-level drug offenses or in the case of want Texas Sheriff fighting hard for bail reform seventy-five percent our population on average of the eighty three hundred that we have is there simply because they're pretrial detainees and many are just simply too poor to pay many non violent offenders I think we need to find a way to make sure that they could stay with their families have be held accountable still but no one can be held in jail simply because they're too poor to pay he's right that's fantastic he's absolutely right and hearing someone in uniform say that is genuinely weird but you know a good weird like like eating a bacon doughnut or seeing how dogs walk when they wear shoes for the first time exactly weird but good and by the way that Sheriff is not just talk he implemented a site and release program for low-level offenses rather than booking people into jails which is great but obviously sheriffs can also go hard the other way Sheriff joke famously prioritized immigration enforcement to the detriment of other concerns like investigating sexual assault and Sheriff Richard Jones in Butler County Ohio has refused to allow his deputies to carry narcan to rescue people mid overdose which is an incredible policy to adopt in a place where at one point overdoses were killing more people than all other causes of death combined Jones has argued that it is unsafe for his officers to help revive people but the more he talks the less it seems that he thinks those people are actually worth reviving at all I'm not advocating that people die but I'm not advocating that the police this is their job and I understand people that say it's a disease I don't know that I believe it's a disease some people will equate it like people that have cancer and I say it's not people don't choose to have cancer and the people with cancer aren't stealing my air conditions and aren't stealing the copper out of people's houses and ripping the wires out look that is clearly offensive and not just to those dealing with addiction but to people with cancer you think that they don't have the ability to steal copper people with cancer can grip it rip it and strip it with the best metal thieves out there in fact cancer patients have been some of the best Fivefinger copper shoppers that I personally know but perhaps the most significant duty of a sheriff is that in most places they are the ones operating the local jail and they can have a ton of leeway over how to do that up until just last year in Alabama sheriff's were legally allowed to personally pocket any left the money designated to feed prisoners giving them a pretty strong incentive to skimp on inmate food which happened the most spectacular example of this was Sheriff Todd enter King of Edo a county over the years there have been accusations of problems with the quality and quantity of food in his jails and what he denied those allegations two years ago in most that he bought a seven hundred and forty thousand dollar beach house and if that seems like a suspiciously large purchase for someone with his salary this probably won't surprise you over the last three years the sheriff's food program has run under budget letting him pocket the leftovers $750,000 all of it taxpayer money do you agree that the optics of this are terrible optics yes but I can't I can't change the hoc different optics oh yeah I'd love for the optics to change here I mean I want to keep doing what I'm doing though I just wish it would look better when I did it joy picked me with sunglasses and a cool jacket I think optics better now I like these better and bad jail conditions obviously don't stop at food take Sheriff Greg a Hearn of Alameda County California more than 40 inmates have died in his jails in the past five years and at least 29 female inmates have sued Ahern over conditions and treatment with allegations ranging from being put in a cell with feces and blood on the walls to a woman who says she screamed for hours as she gave birth alone in an isolation cell now the sheriff has defended his facilities and disputed those allegations though not in a particularly convincing way when you hear people say there were species on the wall blood everywhere and tampon stuck everywhere is that make you a mean the people that are in custody for murder rape robbery who have lied their entire life and they make things up literally okay hold on hold on first the two women who made those claims were not murderers all robbers they were actually in there on minor charges all of which were dropped second even if they were murderers they should still be treated humanely and third how do you with on the question there was feces on the wall blood everywhere does that make you angry that is one of the easier questions to answer well like is hanck good or is this a horse the answer is yes it's obviously yes right look at me yes at this point you may be wondering how can shareist be reined in well the problem there is that that is actually very difficult while police chiefs can be hired or fired removing a sheriff between elections is almost impossible it generally requires a criminal conviction intervention from state government or a recall vote and those are very rarely successful so sheriffs operate with a lot of impunity and they can get pretty belligerent if anyone questions them remember Kenny boon of the sheriff who hated drugs but loved yelling at fake child funerals well when the county finance director started asking questions about his spending boone did not take it well kevin kenny bone again i don't know what your deal is but he left for that guy hey kenny again ignore that last message i just wanted to say you're a bastard I don't think you're intelligent I think you're a nerdy dorky young insightful individual don't mean I blew it again ignore this courtroom speech assume talk to your kids about drugs love you bye dad damn it Kenny now you should know we reached out to Kenny moons lawyer last week and they said that they dispute the authenticity of that voicemail you know the one where he says he's Kenny boon while sounding exactly like Kenny boo now ideally we'd have discussed this difference of opinion with Kenny boon himself but he wasn't available because fun fact he's in jail right now he recently pleaded guilty to felony embezzlement which actually reminds me talk to your kids about felony embezzlement too often sheriff's are the law wherever they live and if you're wondering I don't even know who my Sheriff is do I have a bad one the very fact that you're asking that is kind of the problem here because sheriff elections like most down ballot elections do not receive nearly enough attention and often they aren't even competitive in 2018 59% of all sheriff races were unopposed in fact remember sheriff I heard with the nightmarish out sounding Jail he's been unopposed for the last four election cycles as for sheriff no narcan unless someone steps up to challenge him he will be unopposed when he runs for re-election later this year and look running against an incumbent sheriff is not easy their own employees are often loath to take them on fearing retribution because as you have seen tonight they're very powerful but that cannot be allowed to continue thankfully the same criminal justice reform movement that's been putting a spotlight on district attorney's races is now increasingly focusing on sheriff's races too and that is not a moment too soon because right now we have a position that has a tremendous amount of authority with low accountability which is always an inevitable recipe for disaster so if there is a sheriff's race in your area this year now would be an excellent time to start googling who the is my Sheriff and learning about them otherwise you might well wind up see a campaign ad like this hi I'm Scott Wilkerson candidate for sheriff it's been my honor to serve the people of this county and I hope you'll really as your sheriff but before my campaign begins I'd like to tell you some things other politicians might try to hide I drink a lot I often drive while drunk I have what my therapist calls a hair-trigger temper like two and as under man I did work as a Hitler impersonator at birthday parties quinceaneras and one disastrous Bat Mitzvah it was a different time but that's not all I spent much of the 90s trying without success to assassinate that little dog from Frasier I have dabbled in what you'd call light cannibalism I've never seen a frog and not killed it in 2009 I contracted the h1n1 virus better known as swine flu and then drove to every sizzler steakhouse in the state lick my fingers and dip them in the salad bar why did I do this well I love sizzler but beyond that I do not know cannot tell you why whenever there's a computer in front of me I go to the Wikipedia page for the Armenian Genocide and just sort of tone it down a bit I don't think it didn't happen I just think people are exaggerating I came up with the idea for zucchini noodles in every single hotel room I have ever stayed in I have licked the phone ear part and mouth part that's both parts I give black people different handshakes than I do white people whether they want it or not what else that's huh oh yeah I also this horse I think it's okay because I traveled out of state to do it wasn't like a local horse or anything I hoped that would these confessions I have earned your trust it's been an honor to serve you as sheriff for the past 42 years so boat sheriff Wilkerson when you go to the polls on November 3rd 2020 it's not like you have a choice because I'm running unopposed so see on the streets I'm dangerous you you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 8,967,692

Keywords:

Id: v_kak7kAdNw

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mi_cempasuchil]

before his term is up we can support the Ella Baker Center in Oakland which is calling to audit him. find your county supervisor and demand they call for an audit. also support the Ella Baker Center monetarily. "We organize with Black, Brown, and low-income people to shift resources away from prisons and punishment, and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong."

[u/Lucibean]

Wouldn’t that pose a conflict of interest? This is not ok.

[u/jdflyer]

2022 is when his term is up.

[u/Lrostro]

We absolutely must get him out of office. The Alameda County Sheriff's Office (ACSO) has a history of killing brown folks, but has flown under the radar I assume because of the disjointed nature of sheriff patrol territory. I've heard his deputies describe the people they encounter as cockroaches. Once a population is dehumanized, the violence cops are willing propagate increases. Source: worked at ACSO, under Ahern, for many years in a civilian capacity.

[u/CommanderFlapjacks]

He managed to sneak in a massive budget increase in the middle of pandemic related fiscal crisis with very little fanfare

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/12/county-supervisors-approve-another-106-million-yearly-for-sheriffs-jail-staffing/

[u/milfordcubicle]

that horse tho

[u/BrunerAcconut]

So could I just run for sheriff? Are there any qualifications?

[u/kemitchell]

Is there an alternative to run?

[u/[deleted]]

Ugh. Here’s the alameda county bio on him link I cant find reference to the coroner there but it’s stated here as a joint position “sheriff-coroner” ”....