The sporadically-coordinated and sometimes clashing policy among local governmental officials of intimidating the region’s homeless population into making an exodus from San Bernardino County has resulted in some confusing, or at least curiously unexplained, developments involving public entities and officials recently.
One of those pertains to the vanishing of the woman who for nearly five years has overseen the division of the county that handles the provision of mental health services and averting psychological and psychiatric crises among the general population.
A second relates to a criminal case involving a death threat or death threats being made by a homeless man against the county sheriff terminating in a guilty plea on a reduced charge, such that a public trial on the matter did not take place. The man was immediately released from custody, whereupon he was charged a week later with a felony parole violation, though authorities maintain they have no knowledge whatsoever with regard to his whereabouts at present. There are indications that the man’s animus toward the sheriff’s department stemmed from a beating or beatings he sustained at the hands of deputies for being homeless. Unexpected publicity about his case, however, appears to have triggered another criminal filing against him, such that his anticipated rearrest and re-incarceration will likely render him incommunicado, keeping the details relating to his beatings from reaching the public at large.
Of the 50 states, California has the highest homeless population. The most recently available reliable statistics, those for 2024, put the number of those without a home in the state at 187,084, which accounted, at that time, for 27.89 percent of the total homeless population in the United States. While California led New York, with its 158,019 unhoused, by less than 30,000 in this dubious distinction, the Golden State was otherwise far ahead – or behind, as one might think of it – of all other states in this way, as the state with the third most people that year was Washington, with 31,554, and Florida in fourth place with 31,362.
In 2024, the official tally of those without a roof over their heads living in San Bernardino County, conducted at the behest of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over the period of 24 hours in January and referred to as the point-in-time county, pegged the homeless in San Bernardino County at 4,255. That put San Bernardino County in ninth place among the state’s 58 counties in terms of hosting those who are completely indigent, behind Fresno County with 4,493; Sacramento County with 6,615;
Orange County with 7,322; Santa Clara County with 7,401; San Francisco County with 8,323; Alameda County with 9,450; San Diego County with 10,605 and Los Angles County with its 72,308 in, of which 43,699 were in the City of Los Angeles.
Each of California’s 58 counties had an average of 3,225.59 homeless living within their borders. By one reading, anyway, the 4,255 unhoused in San Bernardino County meant that the county was bearing more than its fair share of the problem, although there were mitigating factors. San Bernardino County, at 20,105 square miles, is geographically the largest county not only in California but in the 48 continental United States with the exception of Alaska. As such, the concentration or density of the homeless in San Bernardino County is far less than in most counties throughout the state.
Be that as it may, there has been growing resentment on the part of a vocal element of the community throughout San Bernardino County with regard to the homeless, particularly as they have proven to be increasingly present in public areas and facilities, such as parks and on sidewalks or in alleyways and vacant lots, parking lots or near schools. Pressure was brought on authorities – county officials, city officials and law enforcement agencies to do something to alleviate the problem.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Robinson v. California held that criminalizing a person’s status, such as being addicted to drugs or being impoverished, is unconstitutional, rendering vagrancy laws virtually unenforceable. In the 2018 case Martin v. Boise, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that city officials in Boise, Idaho, could not enforce an anti-camping ordinance whenever its homeless population exceeds the number of available beds in its homeless shelters. The U.S. Supreme Court let that decision stand. Robinson V. California and Martin v. Boise had the practical effect of preventing government in general and local governments in particular from declaring open warfare on the homeless.
That, however, did not prevent local government officials and law enforcement officers from becoming creative in the way they sought to root out homelessness. One strategy pursued was that by the City of San Bernardino, which involved its police department, assisted by the city attorney’s office, using heavy-handed tactics in an effort to get the unhoused to simply leave. Police officers went into the city’s parks where homeless had taken up residence, and would single out anyone assisting them by providing them with meals or offering some other type of assistance. They would issue those do-gooders both civil, upon the first offense, and criminal, upon subsequent offense or offenses, citations for encouraging the homeless to remain in San Bernardino. The police deliver an ultimatum to the homeless that they leave and then transport them and their belongings in a police vehicle to a location outside the city.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department took a leaf out of the San Bernardino Police Department’s book and upped it a notch or two.
A tried-and-true tactic in dealing with the homeless population employed by sheriff’s deputies is to take their possessions away, most particularly their bedding. The ground is an excellent conductor of heat. As such, those who must sleep on it without at least one layer of insulation can become very cold and uncomfortable at night. Recurrently, the homeless sleep on two or three such layers of makeshift insulation – cardboard, blankets or sleeping bags or a combination thereof. Typically, sheriff’s department deputies assigned to deal with the homeless arrive at homeless encampments, where they insist that layers of cardboard used as insulation from the ground as well as blankets, bedding, sleeping bags and tents which the impoverished use to make it through the night are declared, in the deputies’ words, “debris.” There is no arguing about this. The inhabitants of the encampments either accept the deputies’ definitions. Males who maintain that their possessions are not trash or are not debris are given what the deputies call “a good ass-kicking,” encounters in which the deputies set hands upon the homeless, roughing them up and beating them, demonstrating who is the master of the situation. Once any resistance is neutralized, the deputies insist that the debris be thrown away along with whatever trash happens to be lying around. This tends to result in any others at the encampment who have witnessed what befell the first set of the denizens of their community to either leave at once to go elsewhere or comply when the deputies turn their attention to them.
At least since the tenure of John McMahon, who became sheriff in 2013 and remained in that post through two election cycles in 2014 and 2018 until voluntarily resigning upon maxing out his pension in 2021, the department has made a practice of utilizing generally young and physically fit deputies, very often ones who engage in body building practices involving the use of anabolic steroids, to deal with the homeless. The reason for this is four-fold. Younger deputies generally have less empathy and a higher disgust level for both older individuals and those in squalid conditions than do older deputies. Sympathy or empathy is antithetical to the sheriff’s department’s goal of simply disposing of the homeless. The overt physicality of younger deputies serves as an intimidation factor which heightens their command presence and in most cases results in compliance with their demands without the need to actually use force. Moreover, one of the side-effects of steroid use is “roid rage,” which is a state of irritability that accompanies the prolonged use of anabolic substances and will manifest in an outburst of anger, aggression, or violence on the part of the user if he encounters a challenge, frustration or any difficult situation. In this way, a homeless individual’s refusal to part with, for example, his sleeping bag or blanket or tent, might trigger an act of aggression on the part of the deputy that is then normally resolved with the homeless person being convinced or forced to give up his or her possessions or, as the department terms it, “debris.”
Some who live on the streets have taken to using wheeled containers such as shopping carts, baby buggies, strollers or wagons onto or into which they load their possessions, including tents, sleeping bags, blankets, stoves and the like. When confronted by deputies who insist that their sleeping gear or other possessions are debris, the homeless can simply load those items into their movable container and pull or push it away, thereby not being forced to surrender their possessions. Deputies, however, have come up with a counter to this, consisting of the department’s canine units. The dogs kept by the department’s handlers consist primarily of detention, apprehension and tracking dogs. There are multiple types of tracking dogs, ones which are used to sniff out drugs or weapons or cadavers or to locate those who are either lost in wilderness area or seeking to elude capture. Apprehension dogs are a specialized type of tracking dogs used to capture fugitives, including ones who might be armed. Detention dogs are ones used to, essentially, confine individuals to a circumscribed space of the department’s choosing. In dealing with the homeless who have a wagon, stroller, baby buggy, shopping cart or similar movable container, deputies will bring in a detention or apprehension dog which can be used to tear through the contents of the wheeled container while the deputy holds the homeless individual at bay. Detention dogs can also be used to hold the homeless person, who is predictably reluctant to be bitten or mauled, in place while the deputy takes hold of the wheeled container and its contents to dispose of them.
The sheriff’s department has been relatively unrestrained in using these aggressive tactics, an outgrowth of the consideration that the homeless generally do not possess the wherewithal to retain, hire or obtain an attorney to make a legal issue over their treatment.
The sheriff’s department has simultaneously formulated and executed a public information strategy to allow the effort to reduce homelessness in the county by forcing as many of the dispossessed as possible to simply take it upon themselves to go elsewhere to be misrepresented as something different and less harsh. This involves a degree of doublespeak whenever the sheriff’s department’s interaction with the homeless in San Bernardino County does not take place in the context of deputies dealing in the isolated context of making a raid on a homeless encampment when no one other than they and the homeless are present. When there is public scrutiny or, more pointedly, the presence of media and the press, the department has branded what it is doing as “homeless outreach.” It identifies this activity in the most benign of terms, referring to its various programs, which are essentially indistinguishable, as Operation Shelter Me; Project HOPE, which stands for Homeless Outreach Proactive Enforcement; Operation Inroads; or presenting it as part of the department’s SOP effort, with SOP being an acronym standing for solution-oriented policing. Whenever CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN or Fox News cameras are rolling or in the presence of Los Angeles Times, San Bernardino Sun or other print media reporters, the department’s spokesmen and spokeswomen or its deputies emphasize how dedicated they are to trying to “help” the homeless by getting them off the streets, representing themselves as “bleeding hearts,” who are doing everything in their power to improve the lives of those who are less fortunate. When no one else is looking on and the deputies find themselves face to face with the homeless, they default to what the department’s actual goal is, which is to adhere to what the politicians in the county and the cities where they work – the members of the county board of supervisors, 12 of the county’s city councils and two of its town councils – want, which is for homeless to simply go away. In the starkest of practical terms, the indigent are not going to be persuaded to leave by authority figures who are nice to them. The approach that San Bernardino County law enforcement agencies take is to dispense with the artificial show and pretense of compassion that takes place when the wider world is watching and deliver the homeless the officers confront the message that it would be best for them to go someplace else.
There has always been a chance, a relatively slight one, that this approach might prove dangerous to the officers who employ it. Some – not many but a few – of those who live on the streets are armed, carrying guns or other weapons such as knives, machetes or martial devices that could prove injurious or deadly. No major incident in which such weaponry was employed is generally known to have occurred, although there is evidence suggesting that local authorities have to some degree shrouded if not outright restricted the circulation of information relating to such acts, real or contemplated, against law enforcement officers on the part of the homeless. Still, last year, what might have been the manifestation of pent up anger over the way in which law enforcement officers in San Bernardino County, in particular sheriff’s deputies, have been given license to intimidate the destitute. Information pertaining to that matter is somewhat limited, quite possibly because a full rendering of the facts might reveal vulnerabilities relating to the safety of law enforcement officers it is considered best not to expose or reveal how high up the sheriff’s chain of command the efforts to rid the draconian effort to rid the county of the homeless is being coordinated or inspire copycat efforts to harm the sheriff.
What is known is that on August 29, 2025, Mark Lee Keller, 45 and described as a “transient,” threatened San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus, insinuating that he was going to use an explosive device against the sheriff’s headquarters On Third Avenue in San Bernardino. By September 3, 2025, Keller was identified as the individual who had made the threat and he was arrested and charged by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office with two counts of violating Penal Code Section 422(A)-F: criminal threats which will result in death or great bodily injury.
Keller remained incarcerated as the matter was headed to trial, with Judges Daniel Lough, Glenn Yabuno, Cheryl Kersey and David Mazurek presiding over the proceedings through September, October, November and into January and February of this year. The matter remained relatively low key and uncelebrated as Deputy District Attorney Andrew Peppler prosecuted the case and Deputy Public Defender Hasan Bajwa provided his defense.
On March 2, before Judge Kyle Brodie, trial was set to begin three days hence on March 5, in Judge Brodie’s courtroom. On March 5, in Judge Brodie’s courtroom but with Judge Erin K. Anderson on the bench, trial was avoided when the prosecution agreed to a plea arrangement in which both counts of Penal Code Section 422(A): criminal threats which will result in death or great bodily injury charge were dropped in favor of a guilty plea PC664-PC422(A): attempted criminal threats which will result in death or great bodily injury.
PC664 pertains to attempts to break the law, while PC422(A) relates to criminal threats to murder or injure. PC422(A) can be prosecuted as either a felony or a misdemeanor, depending on the severity and seriousness of the threat and the defendant’s criminal history. PC664 generally denotes a lesser degree of seriousness, as its application is an admission by the state that the crime was not actually committed. PC664, because it pertains to an attempt at a criminal act rather than an act itself, normally triggers the application of a penalty that is half of the sentence of the completed crime.
While Keller had a “criminal record” – i.e., a history of prior contacts with law enforcement that included arrests and having been prosecuted – comparatively, he was not what is normally considered anything close to a career criminal. Additionally, one of those arrests for a crime followed by the district attorney’s office to dismiss the charges could explicate what prompted Keller’s threat against Sheriff Dicus.
Superior Court records show that on October 3, 2021 there was an incident in San Bernardino where the police department encountered Keller in the possession of drugs in a quantity that would indicate what he had was a stash intended for personal use rather than sales, along with an instrument to imbibe, inject or otherwise consume the drugs. That arrest resulted in two filings, one on October 22, 2021 for HS11364(A)-M: possession of a controlled substance and instrument/paraphernalia, a misdemeanor, and another entered into the court record on December 30, 2021, HS11377(a)-M: possession of a dangerous drug/controlled substances. Keller failed to make several court dates to answer those charges but was finally present in court on the matter on July 24, 2023, at which time he entered not guilty pleas. Ultimately, the charges against him were dismissed.
On August 19, 2022, Keller was issued a citation by the San Bernardino Police Department for jaywalking. On December 16, 2022 and again on January 20 and February 24 of 2023 notices of his failure to appear were produced but could not be delivered because he had no known address.
On December 28, 2023, Keller was criminally charged with VC2800(A)-M: failing to obey a police officer. He was convicted of that offense on February 24, 2025, in a hearing before Commissioner Dan Lough, with Deputy District Attorney Kathleen Barreras present and while he was being represented by Deputy Public Defender Sam Knudsen. He was given a four day jail sentence.
On September 19, 2024, Keller was issued a citation for being a pedestrian outside of a crosswalk, essentially jaywalking, in Rialto. He did not show up for his hearing on the matter in Fontana Superior Court and on February 7, 2025, a failure to appear notice was printed. On February 18 it was noted that there was no address to deliver the failure to appear notice to. Subsequent notices were prepared on March 14 and April 18 of 2025 but could not be delivered.
On November 25, 2024, Keller was again involved in an incident somewhere in the environs of San Bernardino which entailed a confrontation with a law enforcement officer, resulting in his being charged once more with VC2800(A)-M: Failure Obey Police Officer. He missed several court dates on which he was scheduled to appear.
Keller issued his threat to Sheriff Dicus on August 29, 2025. He was in custody by September 3, 2025 and was in court on September 4 for a so-called Humphrey hearing before Commissioner Lough in which he was represented by Deputy Public Defender Richard LaFianza and the People of California were reprsented by Deputy District Attorney Anna Choo. LaFizanza’s motion to have Keller released on his own recognizance was denied. According to Commissioner Lough, “The Court finds defendant presents a flight risk and finds by clear and convincing evidence that there are no less restrictive non-financial or financial conditions that will ensure a return to court. Court finds defendant presents a public safety risk and finds by clear and convincing evidence that there are no less restrictive non-financial or financial conditions that will protect the public and/or victims.”
Keller remained incarcerated for the next six months. On March 5, 2026, Judge Anderson accepted the plea arrangement that had been worked out between Peppler and Bajwa. The VC2800(A)-M: failure to obey a police officer charges growing out of the November 25, 2024 incident was, according to the court record, given “dismissal/stricken pursuant to plea”
In the PC664 PC422(A) case against Keller resolved on March 5, 2026, Judge Anderson did not enter the conviction as a misdemeanor, but rather as a felony, and imposed a middle range sentence of one year in state prison. Utilizing the half-sentence provision of Penal Code Section 664 and that Keller had already served 188 days in jail while awaiting trial, she deemed his suitable for immediate release, while ordering him to report for parole.
The Sentinel had been entirely unaware of the case against Keller or any of its attendant circumstance until the San Bernardino Sun on March 10, 2026, in an article by Brian Rokos, revealed that Keller had been convicted.
Today, on March 13, eight days after his release, Keller was charged with felony violation of his parole in papers that had been prepared on March 12. On March 13, filed at the court at the time of the felony parole violation accusation was a “confidential” document pertaining to Keller.
Of note is that the identical failure to obey a police officer charges filed against Keller – VC2800(A)-M – are vehicle code violations. There is no evidence to suggest Keller has a vehicle.
Keller remains, as of press time, at large, outside of custody. He has no definite place of residence and his current whereabouts are unknown, nor is it clear whether he returned after his March 5 release to the haunts he frequented prior to his September 3, 2025 arrest. His placement back into custody will make it difficult for members of the public or press to learn from him what issue provoked his threat on August 29 to harm Sheriff Dicus.
Meanwhile, a degree of mystery attends what precipitated the departure of Georgina Yoshioka as the director of the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, extending to exactly when Yoshioka too her leave.
Yoshioka, a licensed clinical social worker in the state of California since 2003, has Bachelor of Sociology, Master of Social Work, Master of Business Administration, Doctorate of Social Work degrees. She began working with the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health and in relatively short order after working as a social worker gravitated into a leadership position overseeing programs within the department’s adult forensic services division. Thereafter, she was made the deputy director of 24-hour and emergency services division.
The Department of Behavioral Health oversees policy and administers mental health service programs extending to the provision of drugs to those eligible to receive them through the Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System, the county’s psychiatric crisis mobile response services division, mental health screening and evaluations, urgent behavioral health services to those experiencing a crisis and longer-term psychiatric care.
One area of the Department of Behavioral Health’s focus is on the homeless community with the county. Among the activities the Department of Behavioral Health is involved in is the annual point-in-time count of the county’s homeless population, conducted during a single 24-hour period, generally in January.
In carrying out the count, employees of the Department of Behavioral Health and some other county departments and volunteers approach those who appear to be homeless in their encampments of several people or in smaller numbers or singly in or near parks, on sidewalks, street parkways, in alleyways, in abandoned or vacant buildings, in landscaping along freeways or near freeway on-ramps, beneath overpasses and train trestles, in drainage channels, on river banks and river beds and other obscure areas. In addition to make a simple count, they endeavor to obtain information from and about those they encounter, pertaining to their gender, race or ethnicity, age, time they have been without a home, education level, current and/or past employment status and a host of other social or personal data that can be useful to sociologists and others as well as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which commissions the point-in-time surveys. In some cases, those approached by the survey takers are cooperative. In some cases, those subject to the count are less cooperative. In certain cases, those about to be approached will leave or even flee. A reality of the circumstance is that the homeless population, while perhaps generally predictable in much of its aspect, contains elements that are sometimes volatile and violent, whose reactions to an “unsolicited approach” could rage out of control. For that reason, county officials, as would most people, consider it to be appropriate and a valid safety precaution to have sheriff’s deputies accompany or have a nearby presence when the county employees and volunteers are carrying out the survey and in contact with the homeless.
These perhaps necessary safeguards, however, can have the unintended effect of impacting both the accuracy of the counts and the breadth and depth of the information and detail collected about the subjects/objects of the counts.
As the survey takers come into an area or district in which the homeless are known to congregate, those wary of dealing with the accompanying law enforcement officers who are not immediately approached may depart, and demonstrably in the past have departed, to avoid any such contact. Those who are contacted by county workers or volunteers might prove, and in the past have shown themselves to be, reluctant to respond to the questions they are being asked, many of which are highly personal in nature or tone, with a law enforcement officer listening.
The sheriff’s department and the county have maintain that the deputies are on hand primarily for “security reasons,” and the sheriff’s department says that any suggestions its deputies are interfering with the accurate compiling of the survey data “is unsupported by any evidence.”
Within the Department of Behavioral Health, at various levels extending as high up the chain of command to Yoshioka and assistant directors Jennifer Alsina and Marina Espinosa, there is consciousness that the circumstances under which the tallies are carries out, with the surveyors surrounded by sheriff’s deputies, might contribute to their inaccuracy.
Over the years, there have been fluctuations in the survey numbers. Certainly, a multitude of factors could and do account for those deviations, including weather conditions on the day the survey is taken, the rise and fall of the world, national, state and regional economy, employment levels, the rate of inflation, other economic trends and, most notefully, actual rising or falling in the number of homeless, all of which are completely independent and have nothing whatsoever to do with whether sheriff’s deputies are at the elbow of those doing the counting.
Data from the 2025 Point-In-Time Count identified a total of 3,821 homeless individuals countywide. That figure reflects a decrease of 434 individuals, or 14.2 percent, compared to 2024.
In January 2024, there were 4,237 adults and children counted as homeless during the 2024 24-hour long survey. In January 2023, officials gave varying counts of 4,194 and 4,195 people located and tallied as homeless.
In 2022, the point-in-time count found 3,333 total homeless in the county, including 944 who were sheltered and 2,389 who were unsheltered.
In 2021 the point-in-time homeless count for San Bernardino County was not conducted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A total of 3,125 individuals were counted as homeless in San Bernardino County during the 2020 point-in-time count.
In 2019, 2,607 homeless individuals were counted in San Bernardino County during the annual point-in-time count.
In 2018, 2,118 people were counted as identified homeless in San Bernardino County.
In, 2017, 1,866 homeless people were tallied in San Bernardino County.
According to the point-in time count conducted in 2016, there were 1,887 homeless within the confines of San Bernardino County in 2016.
In 2015, there were 2,140 homeless counted in San Bernardino.
In 2014, there were 3,821 homeless counted during that year’s point-in-time count.
There were 2,321 people cataloged as homeless during the 2013 point-in-time count in San Bernardino County in 2013.
There were 2,876 homeless in San Bernardino County counted in 2012.
In 2011, the number of homeless counted throughout San Bernardino County was 3,431.
Some perceive in the down, down, up, down, down, relatively even, up, up, up, up, relatively even and down numbers, more often than not in defiance of local, state and national economy performance a sense of the intimidation factor employed by the county’s various law enforcement agencies in the day of or days and weeks prior to the count as having impacted what turns into the official numbers of the county’s homeless provided by the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Raids and sweeps of homeless encampments, including “clobbering time” operations in which law enforcement officers would rough up and in their own words “beat the shit out of” the men they would encounter there which have taken place at all times of the year, including in January in the days and weeks prior to the homeless counts being conducted, are indeed likely to have impacted the bottom line in the county’s homeless survey statistics. Often accompanying those carrying out the point-in-time surveys in the cities of Chino, Montclair, Upland, Ontario, Fontana, Rialto, Colton, San Bernardino, Redlands and Barstow are members of those respective jurisdictions’ municipal police departments. In all other cities and incorporated towns in the county, which contract with the sheriff’s department for the provision of law enforcement service, and in the unincorporated county areas, the officers accompanying the surveyors are almost universally San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department deputies.
What has been suggested is that in those places where the sheriff’s department escorts the survey takers and in a few of the cities, such as San Bernardino in which officers there have a known penchent for aggression toward the homeless, an atmosphere has been created in which those who are tallying the number of homeless are less likely to obtain an accurate count than their counterparts elsewhere.
Many in the county’s homeless population make a general association between the San Bernardino County Department of Social Services and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and its deputies. On the one day throughout the year when the functionaries with the Department of Social Services consistently come into contact with a large segment of the county’s homeless population, in more locales than not, they are in the company of sheriff’s deputies. This has hampered the Department of Social Services in one of its primary missions: making mental health services available to those portions of the county population most in need of psychiatric care.
It was not that Yoshioka, Alsina and Espinosa did not appreciate the need for safety and protecting those who were carrying out the homelessness surveys from some of those they might encounter who might prove to be hostile and violent. Rather, it was the pact with the devil that needed to be made in which that level of security was being provided by the same troglodytes that saw it as part of their job to administer beatings to a segment of the population the Department of Behavioral Health was trying to assist that was creating the problem. Before Dicus was Sheriff John McMahon and Before Him was Sheriff Rod Hoops, who was preceded by Gary Penrod, who came after Dick Williams, the successor to Floyd Tidwell. Tidwell’s career had flourished under Sheriff Frank Bland, who was first elected in 1954 and was reelected there after in 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1978. Bland was, essentially, the creator of the modern San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. It was Bland’s attitude that the element of society his department and his deputies were called upon to deal with were the architects of their own fate. Those criminals who found themselves face-to-face with his deputies were being confronted with the consequences of their own action and poor choices in life. Only wrongheaded bleeding heart liberals advocated that they be treated compassionately, Bland said, and he was no bleeding heart liberal. His deputies were instructed to deal with San Bernardino County’s riff-raff according to his philosophy, and be accorded the treatment they deserved.
It appears that a good deal of Bland’s approach to patrolling society and keeping decent people safe had survived into the current crop of law enforcement professionals employed by the sheriff’s office. The homeless have arrived at their station in life, the vast majority of deputies and higher-ups in the department believe, as a result of their own poor choices. Showing the denizens of the streets tough love and convincing them to leave the county and go elsewhere rather than mollycoddling them is what is in order, according to the department, and the deputies have no problem doing their jobs.
The Sentinel is informed that Yoshioka, Alsina and Espinosa were to a greater or lesser degree personally disturbed, in one case acutely emotionally to the point of tears, by the way in which the sheriff’s department employs brutality and violence against the county’s homeless population, most notably males between the approximate ages of 17 to 55. For anyone of them, or those in positions with the Department of Behavioral Health below them to offer resistance to what is occurring would, the Sentinel was told, incur the wrath of the board of supervisors as well as the county administrators in under whose authority the Department of Behavioral Health falls, Assistant Executive Officer Diane Rundles and Deputy Executive Officer Victor Tordesillas, risking their employment status with the county.
At some point late in 2025, Yoshioka absented herself from her normal roles as the head of the Department of Behavioral Health. There was no official announcement of her departure, and what her status was or whether she was merely on temporary leave was not made clear.
If Yoshioka was departing, the advancement of either Alsina or Espinosa to replace her would have been a logical progression. That did not occur, however. Instead, Public Health Director Josh Dugas was transferred out of his normal assignment and has been moved into Yoshioka’s position as the director of the Behavioral Health Department. Dugas’s second-in-command, Janki Patel, is now running, at least temporarily, the Department of Public Health.
The Sentinel this week sought clarification as to the lines of authority in the Department of Behavioral Health.
County Spokesman David Wert said, “Georgina Yoshioka voluntarily retired last month after a long career in public service and Public Health Director Josh Dugas is now the acting director of Behavioral Health. Marina Espinosa and Jennifer Alsina are assistant directors of Behavioral Health. Public Health Assistant Director Janki Patel is serving as acting director of Public Health. Behavioral Health and Public Health have similar missions and are of similar size and complexity. The director positions of both departments are administrative in nature and are supported by medical personnel.”