Riverside County Supervisors Revisit Sheriff's Oversight Committee After Grand Jury Report

Riverside County Supervisors will decide Tuesday whether to create a new committee to look into oversight of the Sheriff's Department, a year after a similar push came up short.

Supervisors Jose Medina and Karen Spiegel are behind the idea. They want to form what's called an ad hoc committee, a temporary group that would spend up to 180 days studying whether Riverside County needs stronger oversight of the sheriff's office. The committee would look at how other counties handle oversight before bringing recommendations back to the full board.

The push comes after a civil grand jury report concluded that investigations into in-custody deaths in county jails lack independence and transparency. The report calls for scrapping the county's current Sheriff's Advisory Committee and replacing it with an independent civilian oversight board.

Medina tried to get an ad hoc committee approved last year, but the effort failed. At the time, he said the issue wouldn’t go away just because the county won’t act. "Not supporting an ad hoc committee, the creation of an ad hoc committee, we are going to stifle the will of the residents," Medina said during a July, 2025 supervisors meeting.

Sheriff Chad Bianco disagrees, arguing the department already has plenty of oversight in place. He pushed back directly on the grand jury's findings in an interview with our Alondra Campos last month. "This assertion, this opinion, this rumor, this propaganda that there is no oversight of the jail is simply a lie," Bianco said back in June. He pointed to the Board of State and Community Corrections, the state agency that inspects local jails, saying it already provides complete oversight of the county's jail system.

Money-wise, the county says the cost of the committee would mostly come from staff time, though it may also bring in outside experts to help, which would come with consultant fees.

Supervisors are set to take up the item tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.