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Indybay Feature

Department of Justice investigates activist blog "Sheriff Mtchell Watch", leaked report

by Brian Rushing (sheriffmitchellwatch [at] gmail.com)
An activist blog in Lake County CA dedicated to unearthing abuses and corruption by local law enforcement officials has been receiving harassment from local offices since its inception in September of 2009. Recently, a "RiMS" report was anonymously leaked from the Lake County Sheriff's Office and was posted on the blog. Rather than investigating the sheriff's department, the Department of Justice is choosing to investigate the bloggers.
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.

Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Zarya Semyonovich
About "Garzoligate". The DEA has informed the County of Lake that they are required to pay money for the crashed helicopter (that's right, it crashed).

This article forgets to mention a third scandal associated with the Sheriff's department that prompted little in the way of official investigation: Flagrant racial profiling. In fact, the sheriff's department told the board of supervisors that they were stopping anybody who looked "Hispanic". The board made them change their verbage to "Anybody who looks like a Mexican National", then gave them a pat on the back.

Then there are cops here who sell narcotics. Sheesh!

This all would have made a great movie, but it's far too complicated.
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