Leroy ‘Lee’ Baca
323-526-5000
ome to 10 million people spread across 4,000 square miles, Los Angeles County is larger than some countries. Policing its unincorporated areas, its mass transit systems, and 41 of its 88 cities are the 8,000 deputies and 7,000 civilians of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department (not to be confused with the famously iron-fisted L.A.P.D., a city-specific force).
At the head of this army is Sheriff Lee Baca, 61-born in East Los Angeles, educated at California State University in Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, an L.A.S.D. officer since 1965, and first elected sheriff in 1998.
Baca's department is widely seen as a model for bridging jurisdictional divides. Given the complexity of its home turf, it has had to be. "We have a system of mutual aid with 47 law enforcement agencies and 30 fire departments within the county" alone, said Baca, "and we do threat assessments for all the 88 cities in Los Angeles County."
Los Angeles has had an intelligence "fusion" center to share data and coordinate planning among agencies since 1996. This "Terrorism Early Warning" unit is led, housed, and largely staffed by the sheriff's department, but it brings together representatives from other local agencies, and from state and federal field offices across the county. Since 9/11, a related unit has been coordinating the spending of federal homeland-security grants by the many eligible agencies within the county.
But Los Angeles County is also struggling with red ink that's deep even by California standards. Thanks to budget cuts, Baca said, "I've lost 1,003 deputy sheriffs, and I'm probably going to lose another 1,500.