Since September 2009, sheriffmitchellwatch.blogspot.com has been available to the Lake County community. The site has welcomed and hosted anonymous comments regarding illegal practices within the LCSO and District Attorney's office. The goal has been to collect information, verify it, and present it to the Grand Jury or the Attorney General to prompt a full investigation. So far, the Attorney General has not responded.

The site also contains a series of discussions about two high-profile scandals that have occurred recently in the county. One of which involves wrongful death of Lynn Thornton and the utter lack of official investigation of the man who is most likely responsible, Chief Deputy Sheriff Russell Perdock. Bismarck Dinius, Thornton's companion, was tried but found not-guilty in light of overwhelming evidence that Perdock was responsible. The other high profile scandal involves misuse of CAMP funding and helicopter joy-riding, a scandal that has been dubbed "Garzoligate" (after Sgt. Dave Garzoli, to whom Sheriff Rodney Mitchell has passed full responsibility for the misuse of funds). As it turns out, dozens of people witnessed Garzoli misusing the helicopter, giving rides to children, and practicing dangerous maneuvers such as "auto-rotating".

The latest scandal, however, has managed to spark the attention of the Department of Justice. Recently, Russell "Rusty" Wright, Range Master and National Guardsman, was internally under investigation for illegally selling weapons out of the National Guard Armory in Lakeport. This investigation was a carefully guarded department secret and received no attention from outside agencies. The report was stored in the Sheriff's Office RiMS system, a database of ongoing investigations. Allegedly, somebody within the Sheriff's department anonymously leaked the RiMS report. Enter the Department of Justice. Rather than investigate the illegal selling of firearms registered to the US government, the DOJ has instead chosen to investigate a man who allegedly leaked the report, Deputy Mike Moreshed. There is also reason to believe the DOJ is investigating the blog administrators.

This article will be updated as the situation develops, and further news will be posted at sheriffmitchellwatch.blogspot.com

There are currently over 8000 anonymous comments on the blog. Many disclose very disturbing details, including allegations of theft, murder, false police reports, arms trading, illegal surveillance, and even child pornography production within the department. you can visit the blog here.