Law enforcement officials from two California counties joined together Wednesday to blast Gov. Gavin Newsom and what one called “soft on crime” elected officials.
The district attorneys of Tulare and Riverside counties, as well as the Riverside County sheriff and Riverside chief of police, took part in a news conference to lament policies like Assembly Bill 109, Prop. 47 and Prop. 57 — state legislation meant to reduce some sentences and lighten overpopulated prisons.
They argue the policies allow people who are repeat offenders — whom they believe should be in state prison — back onto the street quickly and without rehabilitation.
The district attorneys used the example of Timothy Bethell a 31-year-old Riverside man. Bethell on March 29 pleaded guilty to 20 counts, including 17 felonies related to burglary, theft and vandalism of businesses in Tulare County.
“I would love to stand here and tell you that we’re having a press conference, because the case of Timothy Bethell is so unique, and it stands out,” Riverside County DA Mike Hestrin said Wednesday. “But it’s the opposite. We called the press conference, because the case of Timothy Bethell is common. This is what’s happening across California.”
Bethell has a criminal history that goes back to 2014, and started with a string of seven burglaries in Visalia businesses in August 2021.
He pleaded no contest to 14 felonies and was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released to a rehabilitation center the next month and absconded, officials said.
Eight days later, he committed another burglary in Visalia. The district attorneys argued he should have been sentenced to the four-year suspended sentence from his previous arrest, but instead was sentenced to a year in jail in his home county of Riverside.
After his release in May 2022, he did a series of burglaries at five businesses in Riverside County, officials said. He was released after three days of a three-year sentence because of jail overcrowding, officials said, before returning to Visalia for the charges he faced last month.
AB 109 has been controversial, with law enforcement officials including Tulare County DA Tim Ward often calling it too lenient.
“We’re all paying the price for the social experiments that are being born on the back of crime victims and law abiding citizens across the state,” Ward said at Wednesday’s news conference. “Our legislators are causing them.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Advocates argue that AB 109 is working. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered California to cut its prison population in a 2011 ruling. Incarceration rates had the state’s prisons holding twice their capacity at the time though that rate has since come down.
Advocates also argue the state’s policies had been most punitive to people of color, who are over represented in the penal system.
The law enforcement officials at the news conference asked for elected officials to meet with them and hash out the issue.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco had harsher words for Newsom and left-wing elected officials.
“I’m going to be a little bit more clear, I hope. This is a complete failure of your governor and of the vast majority of your legislators who have absolutely lied to all of you for a political, philosophical agenda,” Bianco said at the news conference.
