Long-ill L.A. county sheriff Sherman Block dies at 74

Friday, October 30, 1998

Long-ill L.A. county sheriff Sherman Block dies at 74

OBITUARY: Candidate dies three days after surgery, within week
of election

By Amanda Covarrubias

The Associated Press

Sheriff Sherman Block, the longtime leader of the nation’s
largest sheriff’s department, died Thursday night, less than a week
before Los Angeles County voters were to decide whether to give him
a fifth four-year term. He was 74.

Block, who underwent surgery Monday for removal of a blood clot
on the brain, died at USC University Hospital, county Supervisor
Mike Antonovich said through a spokesman. The blood clot was
discovered after Block fell at his home on Saturday.

"Block was a man of honor and integrity," Antonovich said.

The sheriff was seeking re-election despite significant health
concerns: He had twice battled cancer and required kidney dialysis
several times a week.

Popular with voters in past years despite a low-key, bland
demeanor, Block was in a tough battle for re-election. The
challenge by a former subordinate, retired Sheriff’s Department
division chief Lee Baca, made Block the first incumbent in more
than a century to be forced into a runoff.

Despite serious problems in the department during his tenure,
Block avoided the kind of wrenching examinations of leadership that
engulfed higher profile counterparts at the Los Angeles Police
Department.

Block became the nation’s highest paid elected official, earning
$234,016 a year – more than the president’s $200,000 annual
salary.

He oversaw 12,400 employees, including 8,000 deputies,
responsible for policing 2.5 million people in unincorporated areas
of Los Angeles County as well as 40 cities that contract with the
department for service. He also operated the nation’s largest urban
jail system, with 19,000 inmates.

Block came to Los Angeles from Chicago in the 1950s and worked
his way up department ranks, building an influential roster of
supporters. Even as Block lay hospitalized after surgery this week,
politicians ranging from Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan to U.S.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein attended a fund-raiser for his campaign.

County supervisors appointed block to the vacant sheriff’s
office in January 1982 and he was first elected to the post later
that year. Over the years he became a stalwart of the Los Angeles
political scene.

Block’s key vulnerability in this year’s campaign for
re-election was his advancing age and flagging health, the subjects
of critical radio ads aired by Baca in the June primary
campaign.

Near the end, Block received dialysis treatment three times a
week for his damaged kidneys. Still, he insisted he was fit enough
to run the department, noting that he worked by telephone when
undergoing dialysis.

Block guided the department through years in which it dealt with
natural disasters – earthquakes, fires and floods – and grappled
with such major law enforcement problems as the explosion of gang
violence, drug trafficking, soaring jail populations and the 1992
riot that followed the acquittals of police officers in the Rodney
King beating trial.

But there were also internal department problems ranging from a
drug money-skimming scandal involving members of an elite narcotics
squad to operational problems such as repeated errant releases of
prisoners from jails. And there were costly lawsuits.

In 1995, a jury found that 25 of his deputies made false
arrests, used excessive force and conspired to violate civil rights
during a disturbance that erupted when they responded to a report
of trouble at a Samoan American family’s party. The family was
awarded $15.9 million in 1996, and just last month the county had
to pay 36 plaintiffs a total of nearly $24 million – the amount to
which the original judgment grew during years of unsuccessful
appeals.

In 1992, investigators appointed by the county Board of
Supervisors issued a scathing account of the department’s brutal
style of policing in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. In 1997, the
U.S. Justice Department cited his department for civil rights
violations in its treatment of mentally ill prisoners.

Earlier this year, the Sheriff’s Department was rocked by
allegations of bribery in the $20 million food-services division of
the downtown jail and alleged inmate beatings provoked by the
deputies.

Despite his sometimes boring demeanor, Block showed flashes of
the comedian. Last month he called a news conference to talk about
neighborhood policing. It was the day before the Jewish holiday of
Yom Kippur and prefaced his remarks by telling reporters, "Tomorrow
is the holiest day of the year in my religion, so I’ll be praying
for all of you."

Born on July 19, 1924, in Chicago, he spent his youth there and
then served in the Army during World War II. He majored in
engineering at Washington University in St. Louis before heading
West.

He became a deputy almost by accident. Driving home one night
from his job as a counterman at what is now Canter’s delicatessen
on Fairfax Avenue, he was pulled over by a policeman.

Remembering stories of police corruption from his youth in
Chicago, he expected the worst. Instead, the officer advised him
that a tail light on his car was burned out and suggested he get it
fixed soon. Then the officer bade him goodnight.

Block was so impressed that from that moment, he wanted to
become a policeman. Three years later, in 1956, he applied to the
Sheriff’s Department and was accepted.

Over the years, he earned a bachelor’s degree in police science,
took graduate courses in public administration and attended the FBI
Academy in Quantico, Va. He was the first deputy in the department
to work his way through each successive rank to become
sheriff.Sheriff challenger Lee Baca

Sherman Block

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