California State Sheriff’s Association
by Sheriff Ian Parkinson
As Sheriff, I belong to a great many groups and organizations. Some are charitable in nature. Others are professional. These professional groups are beneficial in that they allow me to stay up to date with the latest laws, regulations, and best practices of law enforcement. One of those I belong to and am currently the Treasurer for is the California State Sheriff’s Association or CSSA.
The organization is made up of all 58 sheriffs in California. It is the preeminent law enforcement organization in the state. It should be. It has been around since 1894. The mission of the California State Sheriff’s Association is to “support the role of sheriff as the chief law enforcement officer in each California County and to speak as a collective voice on matters of public safety. The association has five main goals:
- Updating knowledge of modern law enforcement science and technology, and providing this educational training to sheriffs’ personnel.
- Developing and maintaining programs, policies and procedures that will enhance public confidence in the sheriff’s criminal detection, prevention, and apprehension capabilities.
- Reinforcing relationships at the state level with the governor, attorney general, state legislature and other state officials as to the needs, requirements, resources, and duties to enable the sheriffs to provide effective and efficient law enforcement in their counties.
- Jointly addressing the unique problems of all California sheriffs and resolving the challenges collectively through the association and periodic meetings of all sheriffs.
- Maintaining the role of sheriff as the chief law enforcement officer in the county.
To help advance these goals, the CSSA has seminars, trainings and conferences throughout the year. Recently, my office hosted a media relations seminar for Sheriffs and their public information officers (PIO’s). This is held once a year and is designed to provide those attending with ways we can get information out to the media and to the public about major investigative cases more efficiently, quickly, and comprehensively. What we did right. And what we did wrong.
By examining these cases it is our hope to learn from these incidents and do a better job getting information out to the public the next time a similar situation happens. The cases we look at typically involve a dynamic situation unfolding in a matter of minutes. For example, the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas which killed 60 people and became the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Or the Oroville Dam crisis which resulted in the Sheriff’s Office in that county having to evacuate more than 180,000 people out of harm’s way. These cases are presented by law enforcement personnel who were actually there when these incidents took place.
Other cases may involve an investigation that spans years. For instance, this year I had my Detective Commander, Chad Nicholson and my PIO, Tony Cipolla present on the Kristin Smart case. As you know, this investigation took 26 years but eventually led to the conviction of Paul Flores for her murder. Chad presented the overall investigation of the case and the challenges of getting the evidence to ultimately convict Flores. And Tony presented on the worldwide media attention this case generated and how our agency was able to deal with all the requests for information and the pressures of trying to release information about the case without jeopardizing the investigation. I believe it was a very eye-opening experience for those Sheriffs and their PIO’s So, we continue to learn. I continue to learn. It can be a process but ultimately the goal is to make our communities better and safer.