News
Brad Gates, six-term Orange County Sheriff and cowboy at heart, dies at age 85
Brad Gates, who throughout his 24 years as Orange County sheriff grew to become the area’s most influential politician as he helped increase and modernize his division, died Friday at his San Juan Capistrano dwelling, in response to the division. He was 85.
“Orange County has misplaced a legend, and our division has misplaced one in every of our most beloved members of the family,” Sheriff Don Barnes mentioned in a press release Friday.
Throughout six phrases in workplace, Gates earned a fame as a strong politician who was a cowboy at coronary heart.
“He loved using horses, was usually noticed in a cowboy hat, and even gained his first election as sheriff with an endorsement by western actor John Wayne,” Barnes mentioned. “The West was tamed lengthy earlier than Brad Gates grew to become sheriff, however just like the lawmen earlier than him, he ensured a quickly rising county was stored secure.”
Gates was first elected sheriff in 1975. Through the years, he took over airport, harbor patrol and jail operations from different departments, The Times reported, and created a central county morgue that shifted management of autopsies from far-flung mortuaries to a facility beneath his management.
He constructed the Intake Release Center, which is accountable for processing all people being booked into and launched from the Orange County jail system, Barnes mentioned, and expanded the county’s Theo Lacy Facility, a maximum-security jail advanced in Orange, amid concerns of jail overcrowding. Beneath his management, the Sheriff’s Division grew to become the primary massive legislation enforcement company to have video cameras put in in patrol items.
Gates additionally launched a regional anti-drug activity pressure, the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program, and based the Drug Abuse Is Life Abuse program, which teaches college students at greater than 600 county colleges about drug, gang and violence prevention.
“The inhabitants of Orange County almost doubled throughout his tenure, and Brad Gates completed the duty of making certain one in every of America’s fastest-growing counties had a first-class Sheriff’s Division,” Barnes mentioned.
After Orange County’s municipal chapter in 1994, the Board of Supervisors appointed Gates to assist run the county, and he assisted within the improvement of a monetary restoration plan.
He grew to become the main proponent of Measure R, which offered for a half-cent gross sales tax designed to assist raise the county out of its monetary disaster with out slashing key companies, reminiscent of legislation enforcement, The Instances reported. Voters killed that proposal.
In a statement issued on social media, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer recalled that as a member of the Board of Supervisors, he labored alongside Gates to navigate the aftermath of the county chapter, “refusing to compromise on public security and our obligation to maintain Orange County secure.”
“Sheriff Gates and his ardour can be missed by many, together with me, however his legacy of service on this county and legislation enforcement will stay on,” Spitzer mentioned.
Gates additionally confronted controversies. Within the late Nineteen Eighties, he was sued by political opponents who accused him of spying on them, The Times reported. The case was settled out of courtroom, and Gates repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Others, together with the American Civil Liberties Union, sued him over inmate deaths and jail crowding.
Gates additionally clashed repeatedly with the Board of Supervisors over his calls for for more cash to increase the county’s overcrowded jails.
Gates graduated from Capistrano Union Excessive Faculty, Orange Coast Faculty and Cal State Lengthy Seashore, the place he acquired bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in criminology, and likewise did in depth graduate research in public administration at Claremont Graduate Faculty. He retired from the Sheriff’s Division in 1999 at age 59.
Gates is survived by his spouse, Deedee; son Scott; daughter Deedee Jo; her husband, Eddie; grandchildren Joanna, Emma and Nathan; and siblings Stillman, Robert and Margaret Lapham.
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