sheriff

Tiger Woods was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and causing property damage following a rollover car crash Friday afternoon in Florida, authorities said.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said that Woods, 50, had tried to overtake another vehicle when his Land Rover clipped it. Woods climbed out of the passenger side of the car. He showed signs of impairment at the scene and was arrested, authorities said. Woods was driving alone, and neither he nor the driver of the other car were injured in the crash.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office released Tiger Woods’ booking photo on Friday night following the golfer’s arrest.

(Martin County Sheriff’s Office via Associated Press)

Woods was released on bail Friday night, the Associated Press reported.

Woods’ talent agency, Excel Sports Management, did not respond to a request for comment.

A breathalyzer test showed he had no alcohol in his system, but he refused to do a urine test, Martin County Sheriff John M. Budensiek said at a news conference around 5 p.m. local time.

The crash occurred around 1 p.m. local time, the department said in a Facebook post. The Jupiter Island Police Dept. was first to respond to the scene and found a pickup truck that had been pulling a pressure cleaner trailer and Woods’ Land Rover rolled over on the driver’s side door, Budensiek said. Officers talked to Woods and then asked the sheriff’s office for help.

The sheriff’s office determined that the pickup truck was slowing down to make a turn into a driveway off of a two-lane road with no shoulder when the driver looked in his mirror and saw the Land Rover approaching quickly from behind. The pickup driver tried to get out of the way of the approaching car. The Land Rover swerved at the last moment to avoid a crash, clipped the back end of the trailer, listed to the side and rolled onto the driver’s side door.

At the scene, Woods appeared lethargic, the sheriff’s office said, and was arrested following “in depth” roadside tests. The sheriff said he does not know exactly what Woods was intoxicated with, but concluded it was likely due to “some type of medication or drug.”

Because Woods refused to submit to a urinalysis, “we will never get definitive results as to what he was impaired on at the time of the crash,” the sheriff said. No drugs or medications were found in Woods’ car.

In addition to DUI and property damage, Woods also was charged with refusal to submit to a lawful test, Budensiek said. All three charges are misdemeanors.

Under Florida law, Woods had to remain in Martin County jail for at least eight hours following the arrest.

Asked if Woods would get preferential treatment, Budensiek said the celebrity would not be with other inmates who could take advantage of his position. Otherwise, it would be just another case.

“We know we arrested a high-profile figure,” Budensiek said. “I’m not trying to dramatize, but it doesn’t matter who you are. If you break the law, we’re going to follow the law. That’s a really easy path to take.”

Woods recently competed at the TGL indoor golf finals but has not confirmed whether he intends to play at the Masters starting April 9 in Augusta, Ga.

Woods was seriously injured in a rollover crash near Rancho Palos Verdes in 2021.

Around Thanksgiving 2009, a report that Woods had been in a car accident near his home erupted into a major scandal involving allegations of affairs with multiple women. It resulted in Woods’ divorce from Elin Nordegren, the mother of his children.

Assistant Editor Christie D’Zurilla contributed to this story.

The feud between California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has escalated after Bonta asked a court to stop Bianco’s investigation into alleged election fraud.

In a 70-page petition filed with the Fourth Appellate District Monday, Bonta wrote that “the Sheriff’s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence” in upcoming elections. The investigation, which he also called “sweeping and unprecedented,” is an abuse of the criminal process, he wrote.

Bianco, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, last month seized more than 650,000 ballots cast in Riverside County in the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.

The sheriff has said that his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have emphatically rejected.

Bianco has described his probe as a “fact-finding mission” to determine if votes were fraudulently counted. He has accused the attorney general, a Democrat, of improperly interfering with what he says is a lawful criminal investigation.

In Riverside County, the proposition passed by more than 82,000 votes. Statewide, it passed with about 64% of the vote and a margin of more than 3.3 million ballots.

“Well, well, well, the political corruption in California just gets bigger and bigger,” Bianco said in a social media video Monday night in response to Bonta’s petition.

“Why in the world would Rob Bonta want that count stopped unless he was afraid of what that count would uncover?” he added. “We have an extremely politically biased appeals court, so this is going to be interesting.”

Political observers have said that Bianco, an outspoken supporter of President Trump, appears to be vying for attention from Trump, who has called on the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections, remains fixated on his 2020 election loss and has falsely claimed widespread fraud.

Kim Nalder, a political science professor and director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State, said that Bianco’s investigation appears to be “an electoral ploy.”

“At this stage in the election, most voters haven’t really tuned into the gubernatorial race, and there are a ton of candidates,” she said. “People who don’t know his background will know now. This is clear signaling.”

The sheriff has denied the probe has anything to do with his campaign.

A poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times showed Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton leading the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates by slim margins, with the Democratic vote split among multiple candidates in a left-leaning state.

Bonta’s office said in a statement Monday evening that it was asking the court to pause the investigation “while we work to understand its basis.”

Bonta’s petition revealed that — in addition to warrants issued on Feb. 9 and 23 — the sheriff obtained a third warrant from the Riverside County Superior Court on March 19 to restart a paused recount of the ballots. The warrants now are under seal.

Bonta’s office called the warrants and the affidavits supporting them legally deficient because “the Sheriff has not identified any particular crime that may have been committed by anyone — a necessary predicate to obtain a criminal search warrant.”
Bonta had earlier questioned whether Bianco had concealed important information from the magistrate judge who approved the warrants.

In his petition, Bonta wrote that the sheriff’s department had planned to assign “12 employees working four days a week, five to seven hours each day” to count the votes.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former senior trial attorney overseeing voting enforcement for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, agreed with Bonta’s assessment that the sheriff’s probe is a legally deficient “fishing expedition.” He questioned how Bianco got a judge to sign off on three warrants.

“You can’t use a warrant as a PR tool, as something to help your political campaign,” Becker said. “You have to meet certain standards in order to obtain a warrant, because a warrant is extraordinary. A warrant is saying we believe there is probable cause to seize evidence, and we need it now.”

Bianco said in a news conference Friday that a Riverside County Superior Court judge had ordered the appointment of a special master to oversee the count. His investigators had already begun counting, but the tally would start over under the court’s guidance, Bianco said.

“This isn’t about counting yes and no votes,” Bianco said in his social media video Monday. “This is simply counting the total ballots and comparing that total with the number of votes. … Plain and simple. Common sense.”

March 23 (UPI) — A sheriff in Riverside, Calif., has seized more than 650,000 ballots from a 2025 state election that allowed the state to redistrict to gain five congressional seats.

Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running for California governor, said Friday that he is investigating allegations by an activist group that alleged the reported tallies don’t match the ballots.

“This investigation is simple,” he said at a press conference. “Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported.”

The election Bianco is investigating is the special election for Proposition 50, asking voters for endorsement to redraw the congressional districts in response to other Republican-led states, like Texas, redrawing their districts to pick up seats.

Californians voted to redistrict, and it was not a close election: 7.4 million in favor to 4.1 million.

A group called Riverside Election Integrity Team called for the investigation saying its examination of records shows about 45,000 more ballots were counted than received, Bianco said.

Local election officials said those allegations were based on a misunderstanding of how ballots are officially counted, the Palm Springs Desert Sun reported.

“County election staff follow detailed procedures established by state and federal law to protect the integrity of the vote and to ensure that every eligible ballot is processed and counted in accordance with those legal requirements,” Riverside County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said in a statement.

Bianco seized the ballots with two warrants signed by a judge. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent Bianco a letter March 6 alleging, “my office has serious concerns as to whether probable cause existed to support the issuance of the warrants and whether your office presented the magistrate with all material evidence as required by law.”

Bonta also alleged that Bianco’s office is not qualified to count ballots and the investigation “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”

Bianco replied: “A judge approved the warrant, so Bonta’s opinion means absolutely nothing.”

Bianco also said Friday that he would give the investigation to a judge-appointed special master.

Democrats and Republicans in the state have said the investigation is baseless.

“It looks to me like it’s a politically motivated effort,” Jon Fleischman, former executive director of the California Republican Party, told The New York Times. “It’s awfully coincidental that he would be taking this high-profile and extreme of an action literally two months before he’s facing a statewide election.”

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, said Bianco’s claims are not supported by the evidence.

“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office has taken actions based on allegations that lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections,” Weber said in a statement on Friday.

“Investigations into election processes must be conducted by those with the appropriate legal authority and subject matter expertise. Similar claims raised in other states by individuals without election administration experience have been thoroughly reviewed and debunked.”

Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat running for governor, said Bianco is trying to gain national exposure.

“What we’re seeing from Chad Bianco is a dangerous abuse of power and no different from what we’re seeing from Donald Trump and the extreme Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters nationally,” Villaraigosa said in a statement.

“Seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots without credible evidence is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy. If you’re willing to undermine free and fair elections for MAGA stardom, you have no business holding public office.”

Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff and a leading Republican candidate for governor, has seized more than 650,000 ballots from last November’s election as part of an investigation that he called a “fact-finding mission” to determine if they were fraudulently counted.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, the state’s top law enforcement official, has sharply criticized the probe, which he called “unprecedented in both scope and scale.”

In a March 4 letter to the sheriff, Bonta said the seizure of the ballots “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.” He threatened to seek legal recourse if Bianco does not halt his investigation.

Bianco said Friday that his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have emphatically rejected.

Here is what we know.

Why were ballots taken?

According to Bonta’s office, Bianco’s department on Feb. 26 took about 1,000 boxes of ballot materials in Riverside County related to the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to partisan redistricting in Republican states, including Texas.

Bianco said that it’s his “constitutional duty” to investigate a potential crime and that he is not trying to change the election results.

The investigation includes all of the ballots cast in the county, where Proposition 50 passed with 56% of the vote, a margin of more than 82,000 ballots. Statewide, it passed with 64% of the vote, a margin of more than 3.3 million ballots.

Bianco said he had been contacted by “a group of citizen volunteers” that said it performed an audit finding that 45,896 more ballots were counted than were cast. He did not name the group, but the allegations match those made by a group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team.

In a February presentation to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco disputed the group’s allegations and said they were based on a misunderstanding of raw data that had not been fully processed.

The actual discrepancy, Tinoco said, was 103 votes — a variance of 0.016%.

How did the sheriff get the ballots?

Bianco said his department served the registrar with a warrant “approved and signed by a judge” on Feb. 9.

According to Bonta’s office, an additional warrant was issued on Feb. 23. Bianco said the warrants are now sealed.

In the March 4 letter to Bianco, the attorney general said he had “serious concerns” about whether the sheriff had probable cause to seize the election materials.

Bonta questioned whether Bianco had concealed information from the magistrate judge who approved the warrants, including details from the registrar’s analysis of the citizen group’s allegations.

An official from Bonta’s office told The Times that the attorney general “found out in the middle of the week that [Bianco] was going to execute the warrants on a Friday.” Bonta’s office asked the sheriff to slow down and share information about the investigation, but “instead of waiting, he actually moved it up” and seized the ballots sooner than planned, said the official, who would only speak on background.

Bianco said a Riverside County Superior Court judge ordered the appointment of a special master to oversee the ballot count. His investigators had already begun counting, but the tally would start over under the court’s guidance, Bianco said.

The ballots would have soon been destroyed

California law requires county officials to keep election materials — including ballots and voter identification envelopes — for 22 months for elections involving a federal office and for six months for all other contests.

The materials must be sealed and then destroyed at the end of the retention period.

The Proposition 50 election took place on Nov. 4, so the ballots are scheduled to be destroyed in May.

Why investigate now?

Political observers say that Bianco — a leading gubernatorial candidate — appears to be vying for attention from President Trump and his supporters.

Kim Nalder, a political science professor and director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State, said the investigation appears to be “an electoral ploy.”

“At this stage in the election, most voters haven’t really tuned into the gubernatorial race, and there are a ton of candidates,” she said. “People who don’t know his background will know now. This is clear signaling.”

Trump has repeatedly called on the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections. He remains fixated on his 2020 election loss and has falsely claimed widespread fraud.

In January, the FBI raided the elections office in Fulton County, Ga., seizing 2020 presidential election records. And this month, the Republican leader of Arizona’s state Senate said he had handed over 2020 election records to the FBI, complying with a federal grand jury subpoena for records related to a controversial audit of the election in Maricopa County.

Bianco is an outspoken Trump supporter.

A poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times showed Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton leading the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates by slim margins, with the Democratic vote split among multiple candidates in a left-leaning state.

The top two vote getters, regardless of party, will advance to the November election.

Bianco said the investigation was “not a recount” for Proposition 50 and had nothing to do with his campaign for governor.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, has seized more than 650,000 ballots from last November’s election and is investigating whether they were fraudulently counted.

“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco said at a news conference Friday.

The unusual probe drew a sharp rebuke from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who said in a statement Friday that it is “unprecedented in both scope and scale” and appears “not to be based on facts or evidence.”

“There is no indication, anywhere in the United States, of widespread voter fraud,” Bonta said. “Counts, recounts, hand counts, audits, and court cases all support this.”

According to Bonta’s office, Bianco’s department on Feb. 26 seized about 1,000 boxes of ballot materials in Riverside County related to the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to partisan redistricting in Republican states, including Texas.

The sheriff said his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have rejected.

President Trump, who remains fixated on his 2020 election loss, continues to amplify election conspiracy theories and has repeatedly called for the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections to counter what he says is widespread fraud.

Bonta and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, both Democrats, have vowed to fight federal interference that could affect voting in California, including efforts to seize election records, as the FBI recently did in Georgia.

Bianco is an outspoken Trump supporter who said in an endorsement video in 2024 that, after 30 years of putting criminals in jail, he figured it was “time to put a felon in the White House — Trump 2024, baby” — referencing Trump’s conviction by a New York jury for falsifying business records while paying hush money to a porn actor.

Bianco’s investigation, which includes all the ballots cast in Riverside County in November, raises questions about how he would handle the election denialism movement if elected governor.

A poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times showed Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton leading the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates by slim margins, in a left-leaning state.

Last fall, Proposition 50 passed in Riverside County with 56% of the vote — a margin of more than 82,000 ballots.

A citizens group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team has said it performed an audit finding that 45,896 more ballots were counted than were cast.

In a lengthy February presentation to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco disputed that figure, saying it was based on a misunderstanding of raw data that had not been fully processed.

The actual discrepancy, Tinoco said, was 103 votes, a variance of 0.016% that was far below what he said was the state’s preferred 2% margin of error for certifying results.

Bianco on Friday said that there “is no acceptable error, small or large, in our elections.”

The sheriff did not name the Riverside Election Integrity Team, but his description of the allegations brought to him by “a group of citizen volunteers” matched theirs.

Bianco said the investigation was “not a recount” for the Proposition 50 contest and was “just as much to prove the election is accurate as it is to show otherwise — we will not know until the count is complete.”

Bonta said his office has “attempted to work cooperatively” with the Sheriff’s Department to understand the basis for the probe. The sheriff, Bonta said, “has delayed, stonewalled, and otherwise refused to work with us in good faith” and failed to provide most of the requested documents.

“We’re concerned that there is not sufficient justification for seizing every ballot that was cast in this very largely populated county,” an official in Bonta’s office said in an interview Friday night.

In a March 4 letter to Bianco, the attorney general cited Bianco’s plan to use Sheriff’s Department staffers, “who are not trained and have no experience,” to count the ballots.

“Let me be clear: this is unacceptable,” Bonta wrote. “Your decision to seize ballots and begin counting them based on vague, unsubstantiated allegations about irregularities in the November special election results sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections. You are also flagrantly violating my directives.”

At his news conference Friday, Bianco fired back by calling Bonta “an embarrassment to law enforcement.”

A Riverside County Superior Court judge, Bianco said, has ordered the appointment of a special master to oversee the ballot count.

In a statement Friday, Secretary of State Weber said “the Sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable. The fact remains that he and his deputies are not elections officials and they do not have expertise in election administration.”

Sheriff Robert Luna has asked the National Institute of Corrections to examine conditions and practices at Los Angeles County jails, a request made after 10 inmates died in jail custody in less than three months.

The request comes amid growing concern over conditions inside county lockups. In September, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Sheriff’s Department over what he called “unsafe and unconstitutional conditions at county jails.”

Luna has also faced questions from the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission over health conditions, health access, drug use, and other factors that have led to in-custody deaths.

Now, the Sheriff’s Department is asking the National Institute of Corrections to conduct a comprehensive review of county jails in an effort to reduce the number of deaths, Luna told The Times.

“I want someone to come in and review from top to bottom,” Luna said.

Specifics on when the review would begin, and what it would entail, have not yet been set, but Luna said the aim is to get an outside, “unbiased view.”

Officials with the National Institute of Corrections referred questions to the federal Bureau of Prisons, its parent agency, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The National Institute of Corrections provides state, local and federal resources and guidance.

The agency, according to its site, provides “on site technical assistance” to jail administrators, and also helps to identify “gaps in policy and practice.”

The review, Luna said, would entail “everything we’re doing from policy, procedure, facilities, to make sure we’re not missing anything,” Luna said.

Inmate deaths have raised concerns among top sheriff officials and agencies charged with overseeing sheriff operations. The department saw 46 in-custody deaths in 2025, a steep increase from the 32 reported in 2024.

In-custody deaths are reviewed by the Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Bonta’s lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department, filed in September 2025, alleged inmates were being “forced to live in filthy cells with broken and overflowing toilets, infestations of rats and roaches, and no clean water for drinking or bathing.”

In a statement, Bonta’s office alleged that a lack of access to healthcare in the jails, and conditions inside, contributed to a “shocking rate of preventable in-custody deaths, such as suicides.”

In a previous interview, Luna referred to the spate of death at the start of the year as a “kick in the groin.”

Efforts to reduce deaths are challenging partly because the inmate population inside the jails has been increasingly older, and ill, Luna said, with many of them suffering from drug addiction or long-term conditions.

About 82% of those in custody disclosed at least one medical or mental health issue when booked, officials said.

According to department data, half of the 46 inmate deaths recorded in 2025 were listed as natural. Autopsy results to determine the causes of death are still pending in this year’s cases.

Luna has pointed to changes that have already been made as efforts to improve conditions, including deploying body-worn cameras at the Inmate Reception Center, Men’s Central Jail and Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

The department has also opened a remodeled mental health assessment area at the Inmate Reception Center, the primary intake and release point for county inmates near Men’s Central Jail.

Afroman testified Tuesday in a civil lawsuit brought by seven members of an Ohio sheriff’s office who allege he used their likenesses without permission in music videos and on merchandise and spread lies about them after they raided his home in August 2022.

The fault, the “Because I Got High” rapper maintained, was not his. On Wednesday, the jury was deliberating the case.

The 51-year-old, whose real name is Joseph Edgar Foreman, said on the stand Tuesday that he was in the right, according to local station WCPO Channel 9 in Cincinnati.

“The whole raid was a mistake. All of this is their fault,” Foreman testified, taking the stand wearing sunglasses with American flag lenses and a red, white and blue suit and matching tie made of fabric recalling the American flag. “If they hadn’t wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit, I would not know their names, they wouldn’t be on my home surveillance system, and there would be no songs, nothing.”

Officers were acting in 2022 on a warrant showing probable cause that drugs and drug paraphernalia would be found on the property. The warrant also alleged that trafficking and kidnapping had happened there. No evidence of a crime was found, and no charges were filed. Foreman wasn’t home during the raid but was able to see at least part of it via a video recorded by his ex-wife and footage captured on his home security system before law enforcement turned off those cameras.

It was that footage that was used in the various videos the rapper subsequently posted, including a music video for the song “Lemon Pound Cake,” which he wrote about the raid.

Officers tore down his door, he said, and damaged his house, taking money, vape pens and a small amount of marijuana. There was a discrepancy about the amount of money taken and returned to the rapper, which seemed to be a point of contention linked to whether he was misrepresenting what the deputies did during the raid.

“After they left, I had the right to kick the can and to do what I had to do to repair the damage they brought to my house. Yes, I did,” Foreman said. “I have freedom of speech. I’m a rapper. I entertain.”

His testimony came on the second day of the trial, after the deputies took the stand the first day and testified that though the raid wasn’t perfect, Foreman had been spreading lies about them for years since it occurred. Deputy Lisa Phillips, whose gender identity had been called into question in Foreman’s videos and social media posts, cried on the stand as some of those videos were played for the court.

Footage with a song called “Licc’em Low Lisa” showed Foreman saying he thought he would “crack some musical jokes” in the wake of the raid, then going to comfort a crying actor who resembled Phillips. “I didn’t know they hurt you that bad. … I was just having fun with a bad situation.” The same video showed the actor engaging in sexual activity with another woman.

In their lawsuit, WCPO said, the deputies said the posts and videos caused them “humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment and loss of reputation” and made it difficult to do their law enforcement work.

In an amicus brief, however, the ACLU argued that the deputies’ lawsuit was a “classic entry into the SLAPP suit genre,” referring to a type of lawsuit that seeks to discourage criticism of public officials.

Los Angeles County leaders are demanding the Sheriff’s Department ramp up safety measures within the jail system as inmate deaths continue to mount.

Ten people died inside L.A. County jails in the first two months of this year, putting the county on track for another record-setting year of in-custody deaths. Autopsies to determine causes for all the deaths are still pending.

County supervisors voted 4 to 0 on Tuesday on a motion, crafted by Supervisor Janice Hahn, requiring the Sheriff Department take a series of steps to reduce inmate deaths, including increasing access to the overdose reversal drug Naloxone, more closely monitoring cameras and beefing up safety checks.

“If we don’t address this now, we will see another record year of deaths in the County jails — a record we do not want to repeat,” the motion stated.

The death rate has eclipsed the pace of 2025, which saw nine deaths by the end of February. The year ended with 46 in-custody deaths, a jump from the 32 reported deaths in 2024.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstained from the vote, arguing the county could not address the death rate without building a new facility.

“We must be honest about the limitations of facilities that were never designed to house today’s population,” she said in a statement. “I have consistently called for a modern replacement facility focused on treatment and rehabilitation because that is where the real solution lies.”

Sheriff Robert Luna conceded this month that 2026 was “not off to a good start.” He framed the challenge as due partially to the fact that the county was booking people who were older and sicker than prior populations and needed more intensive care than could be offered by the jail system. Four in 5 people face a mental or physical health issue, the department said.

“Every time I get notified that someone in my care has passed away, it’s like a kick in the groin,” Luna said.

The department said in a statement that it has “taken aggressive action to prevent overdoses and violence,” but believes “no jail system can eliminate all risks when people enter custody already critically ill.”

The supervisors voted more than four years ago to shut down Men’s Central Jail, a downtown facility notorious for dangerous and deteriorating conditions, without building a replacement. Since then, inspectors continued to find a litany of problems inside the jail, including mildew and lack of food.

“The fact is that we need to close down Men’s Central,” said Peggy Lee Kennedy, one of several callers to the board meeting who urged the county to speed up the closure. “Why are all these people living there with major mental health issues instead of getting the help they really truly need?”

The county continues to face intense scrutiny from the state over the conditions inside the jail. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Sheriff’s Department in September alleging that inmates “are forced to live in filthy cells with broken and overflowing toilets, infestations of rats and roaches, and no clean water for drinking or bathing.”

Bonta alleged inmates were barred from mental and medical care, leading to a “shocking rate of deaths inside the jails, many of which are caused by preventable circumstances, such as overdoses, suicides, or violence among incarcerated persons.”

Times staff writer Salvador Hernandez contributed reporting.