Full Notification

Public Information Release
April 24, 2013
Lieutenant Steve Brooks, Public Information Officer



Sheriff Rivero recently conducted an audit of the “Lake County Sheriff’s Office Records Information Management System” (RIMS), which he does periodically. By law, Sheriff Rivero has the responsibility of protecting the information contained within the system.

During the audit, Sheriff Rivero made changes to the system to improve security. It was subsequently discovered by Sheriff Rivero that unauthorized and inappropriate use of the system by members of the Lakeport Police Department had occurred. The audit disclosed that members of the Lakeport Police Department were looking up individuals contained in the system for no apparent reason and accessing their private information. This included a member of the Lakeport Police Department who was accessing information concerning his own wife and had modified the information. Prior to the Sheriff conducting the audit, Lakeport Police Chief Rasmussen had assured him that there had not been any unauthorized access by him or his staff. Chief Rasmussen went on to assure the Sheriff that only part of the program they accessed was the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) portion of RIMS, which the Sheriff had allowed in the past.

Sheriff Rivero continues to provide Lakeport police with access to CAD through an alternative method. Due to Sheriff Rivero’s audit findings and the inconsistencies of Chief Rasmussen’s statements, coupled with his failure to take responsibility for his staff, the Sheriff has ordered the temporarily access granted the administration and supervisors of the Lakeport Police Department cancelled on 4/25/2013 at 8 AM.


It should be noted that the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the Lakeport Police Department have and maintain separate control of their own Records Information Management System. It is unnecessary for the Lakeport Police Department to have access to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office criminal information system, when they have their own system that the Sheriff’s Office does not have nor wants access to. The Lakeport Police Department has not been denied access to the Computer Aided Dispatch. The Sheriff has continued to tighten the security of our protected and sensitive internally maintained law enforcement records for the protection of the public’s privacy rights as required by law.