Sheriff Baca faces tough election challenge

As the end nears on a tumultuous fourth term marred by allegations of prisoner abuse and internal corruption, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca faces a major battle for a fifth term after his ousted undersheriff announced Thursday he would seek to replace Baca next year. 

Paul Tanaka, the former second-in-command to Baca, made the announcement at a press conference on Thursday.

“I have decided to declare my candidacy for sheriff of Los Angeles County because community members are long overdue for new direction from their sheriff,” Tanaka said.

The former undersheriff ungracefully left the department last year after a blue ribbon commission accused him of breeding abuse of power among deputies in county jails. 

On Thursday he continued to deny the charges, saying, “I was nowhere in the organizational chart where (the jail system) was my responsibility in any way, shape or form,” according to the L.A. Daily News.

Tanaka joins an election field that also includes another experienced former sheriff’s official: former Cdr. Bob Olmsted. In 2011, Olmsted publicly criticized Baca for failure to properly reprimand deputies for use of excessive force in county prisons. 

Olmsted announced his candidacy Wednesday. After Tanaka joined the race, Olmsted said the former undersheriff was not the right person to step up and replace the controversial Baca.

“Paul Tanaka and Lee Baca created this mess together — I saw than when I tried to stop the abuse at Men’s Central Jail,” he said.

Baca, 71, has served as the county sheriff for 15 years. The department has been the subject of an FBI investigation for the past two years, with a former Malibu/Lost Hills deputy admitting to wearing a wire for the investigation. The City of Malibu pays approximately $6.3 million annually to the county sheriff’s department for police services.