TRANSCRIPT
MADISON AUMENT, BYLINE: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who has downplayed record deaths in his jails, has been stripped of his duties as coroner. That’s under a new law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom last night. Bianco will no longer determine the cause of death for people who die in his jails. Come July, that’ll fall to a separate county medical examiner’s office. Lisa Matus, whose son Richard died in one of Bianco’s jails, hopes the new system will improve transparency.
LISA MATUS: We'll have public trust, and that's what's important. We can trust this system.
AUMENT: Matus’ son was one of 18 people who died in Riverside jails in 2022…the most in any given year in two decades. Matus and other critics said it was a conflict of interest for the sheriff to investigate deaths in his jails. That inspired State Senator Sabrina Cervantes to write the bill. This is one in a string of recent blows to Sheriff Bianco— last week the California Supreme Court ruled he broke the law by seizing hundreds of thousands ballots. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument in San Bernardino.