How big are Teflon Sheriff Lee Baca's balls, you ask?

Well, as he's been turned and grilled like a 10-piece special at Pollo Loco over his non-leadership when it comes to a decade's worth of inmate beatings at the hands of deputies inside the county jail system, Baca decided to, in the absolute heat of things, when one of the county's leaders essentially said his head is on a platter, take a vacay to the Arab nation of Qatar, home of near-slavery. Yeah:

The Los Angeles Times reported that the county's top cop (we call him the Teflon Sheriff because, no matter what his underlings do, nothing seems to stick to his record) was in Qatar this week, even as the paper editorialized that he's “out of time and excuses” when it comes to his jail-abuse record.

County Supervisor Gloria Molina said:

If any of these [jail cases] that we see were on TV like Rodney King, the public would be asking for the sheriff's head.

A tipster sent us a possible itinerary, with Baca leaving L.A. Sunday and returning Wednesday.

Baca's spokesman, by the way, doesn't return the calls of L.A.'s second-largest publication after we published this. Because, as a public servant under Baca, you get to pick and choose which constituents get the county info they pay for as taxpayers.

Anyway, the spokesman told the Times our elected sheriff was on a Qatar-paid trip to attend a conference there on policing and terrorism.

(Baca has long held himself up as a friend of political contributors Arab Americans, although his department hasn't exactly been a bastion of civil liberties).

Now, you might say, Yes, but we prefer our leaders commanding that thin blue line to have a little brass in their pants.

But heading off to Qatar as he's being fried by his bosses on the County Board of Supervisors? As he said he'll fix things and that the voters will ultimately decide on his leadership record?

This seems to be a popular M.O. with Baca — taking off when times are tough.

That's just daring you to cut this guy's cojones down to size the next time he's up for election.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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