Chad Bianco’s Keystone Cops lose 60 pounds of meth

Riverside County has now gifted satirists a plotline.

Last week, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department arranged a sting operation hoping to arrest drug traffickers. Only, in this case, the department unwittingly became the actual traffickers.

Undercover officers provided a drug dealer with 60 pounds of methamphetamine. The dealer then took off and the department’s finest couldn’t keep up to complete the operation.

“After the transaction, the suspect drove away and deputies from the Gang Task Force attempted a vehicle stop. The suspect failed to yield, and a pursuit was initiated. Due to the high speeds and the suspect’s disregard for public safety, deputies lost sight of the vehicle,” the department said in a statement.

Well done, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

“[Methamphetamine] is often sold in quantities of 3.5 grams, or an eighth of an ounce, known as an 8-ball. Sixty pounds of methamphetamine could be divided into 7,680 such 8-balls,” reported the Southern California News Group’s Brian Rokos.

This is the latest humiliation for one of the largest sheriff’s departments in the state.

The department is now under a state civil rights investigation launched by the California Department of Justice due to a massive spike in jail deaths last year.

The department is also facing civil lawsuits by the families of people who have died while under the county’s custody.  And that comes not long after the county had to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit after Riverside County deputies wrongly raided the homes of an elderly couple without a warrant.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, elected in 2018 at the behest of the county’s deputies union and with the enthusiastic support of Democratic County Supervisors Chuck Washington and V. Manuel Perez, has steered the department in the wrong direction.

This editorial board will continue to call on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to establish an oversight body over the Sheriff’s Department. Democrats hold a majority on the board; while they are surely conflicted given their alliance with the deputies union, Democrats in Riverside County must press the supervisors to act and act now.