ON THE COVER
‘Policing our Own’
The story of reinstated sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Daniels and why holding problematic officers accountable is harder than it seems By Thadeus Greenson
thad@northcoastjournal.com
B
y the time Jason Daniels was criminally charged in 2014 with committing rape and sexual battery while on patrol as a Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office deputy, he’d already been “separated from his employment,” as the county put it. And as the case wound its way through court, local headlines all had a familiar refrain: “Ex-sergeant’s Sexual Assault Case Gets February Prelim Date,” “Ex-deputy Gets Day in Court,” “Alleged Sexual Assault Victim Testifies Against Former HumCo Sheriff’s Sergeant Jason Daniels” and, finally, “Former HCSO Sgt. Jason Daniels Found Not Guilty.” But five years after the last of those headlines, Jason Daniels has his job back — technically anyway, though he is no longer working as a law enforcement officer — despite the county having spent more than $240,000 on outside attorneys in personnel actions involving the case. While Daniels is not currently working or receiving a regular paycheck, he holds one of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office’s 17 sergeant positions on paper, apparently after an independent arbitrator reversed the county’s decision to “separate” him from his employment. Public sector personnel actions are largely kept strictly confidential, and even more so with police officers, who enjoy not only enhanced due process pro-
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Photo by Mark McKenna
tections but also specific laws guarding their disciplinary proceedings — and outcomes — from public view. As such, the county is legally limited in what it can say about Daniels’ situation, and Daniels himself declined several attempts to be interviewed for this story, so exactly what happened remains murky. But information gleaned through a series of California Public Records Act requests offers a basic outline and, amid an upwelling of demands for police officer accountability nationally in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and locally as the Eureka Police Department texting scandal unfolds in real time, Daniels’ case has reverberations in all directions. For those advocating for police reform, it’s a sobering reminder of the degree to which state laws are designed to protect officers and keep their alleged transgressions secret. For municipalities calculating the potential liabilities of personnel actions, it can be seen as a warning of just how wrong things can go. And for police chiefs and sheriffs clamoring for more authority to fire and discipline their officers, well, Jason Daniels might be seen as a prime example of how California law is overprotective of officers and their disciplinary records. Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal said he’s legally very limited in what he can say publicly about Daniels’ case, so said very little about it specifical-
NORTH COAST JOURNAL • Thursday, June 10, 2021 • northcoastjournal.com
ly. But speaking generally, he said California needs to shift toward a system that either gives agencies more leeway to fire problematic officers or creates a statewide system for decertifying bad actors. “If we are to be able to police our own — which is what the public is begging for, what they want — we need the tools to do so,” he said. “If we identify a law enforcement officer who has moral issues, integrity issues or racist issues, a law enforcement executive should be able to fire those people so they don’t carry a badge and don’t carry this awesome power that’s afforded to peace officers.”
By all public accounts, Jason Scott
Daniels’ career had been successful. A local product, he’d graduated from Eureka High School and the College of the Redwoods Police Academy before being hired on as a police officer, first in Trinidad then in Blue Lake. He was hired as a deputy sheriff in 2000 and promoted to sergeant in 2011, serving as a field training officer, a member of the county gang task force and crisis negotiation team, and had been supervising a graveyard shift for several years. In April of 2013, he was honored by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors for saving a suicidal 21-year-old woman. She’d been standing on a 2-inch ledge on the Willow Creek Bridge, about 75 feet above a rocky river bar, and Daniels had
been negotiating with her for 90 minutes when she leaned just a bit closer to him and he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her over the railing to safety. In an interview with the Times-Standard, Daniels was dismissive of the award and any hero talk: “It’s just what we do,” he said. Six months later, at about 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2013, investigators with the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office called Daniels down to the jail, saying there was an issue with someone in custody there. When he arrived, they placed him under arrest on suspicion of raping a woman while on duty two months earlier. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office immediately placed Daniels on administrative leave and four months later, after an internal investigation, he was “separated from county service.” In the aftermath of Daniels’ arrest, another woman came forward to allege he’d sexually battered her during a traffic stop on March 13, 2013, pulling down her pants and fondling her against her will. Roughly a year after Daniels’ arrest, the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office filed a three-count felony complaint charging him with sexually penetrating Jane Doe 1 with a foreign object against her will and sexually battering her while she was unlawfully restrained Aug. 29, 2013, as well as a separate charge of sexually battering Jane Doe 2 during the March 13 traffic stop.
