A veteran California sheriff and governor hopeful is highlighting one of his biggest career wins happening through a partnership with ‘To Catch a Predator’ in a massive 2006 operation.
A blue state sheriff, who has been in law enforcement for more than three decades, is taking his tough-on-crime policies to the governor’s race to save his state from further decline.
“I’m not about doing the norm. I’m not about doing what we’ve always done. And it’s about pushing the limits for a reason and for the right reason,” Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told Fox News Digital.
Bianco, a Republican sheriff in California and a supporter of President Donald Trump’s 2024 election, announced on Monday that he is launching a 2026 campaign for governor in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“It is only our Democrat elected officials who are responsible for the decline of California,” he said. “What is it they have given us? Rampant crime, higher taxes, the highest cost of living in our nation, tent encampments in every major city, more fentanyl deaths, catastrophic fires, a broken home insurance market and people across our state are struggling to afford groceries and gas. Californians deserve better.”
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Bianco highlighted a crime win early on in his career, in 2006, when he got the approval to get law enforcement involved in catching internet predators.
“I ended up working with Dateline to start the first law enforcement involved with ‘To Catch a Predator.’ That became their biggest success in Dateline’s history. And that was us. That was me begging my administration here to allow me to do the right thing. And I had this vision of how it would work. And it was an enormous success,” Bianco recalled.
The operation was over a three-day period, when Bianco said they arrested 51 people throughout Southern California and beyond who were preying on children. Bianco added over the next year, he assisted in well over 100 similar operations across the country and even one in England.
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“It was all because I knew what the right thing to do was. And I wasn’t happy with being told no and being told no just for the reason of, ‘well, that’s not how we do things,'” Bianco said.
“And that is basically a nutshell of my career. It’s about pushing the envelope. It’s about doing something different than everyone else does, hoping that you get and knowing that you’re going to get a better result.”
Bianco shared that other areas they are seeing success in the county are in their jail operations and feels that they are “far more substantially beneficial to inmates than any other correctional institution.”
“We were actually recognized by the state of California as being an example for four other jails in California to emulate. And we are very proud of it,” Bianco said.
Bianco also added that his county is seeing lower crime numbers than other areas of California simply because he is “allowing deputies to be deputies.” He also praised Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin for prosecuting criminals and getting them off the streets.
“I’m very lucky here in Riverside County and that I have a great district attorney. He believes that if we have put a good case together and done a good investigation and that person is responsible for that crime, that they should be punished, and they should be held accountable,” Bianco explained.
“You absolutely have to have that system if you are going to deter crime. If there’s not going to be a punishment and a consequence for crime, then naturally people are going to just keep committing crimes.”
Bianco said they have been successful in keeping violent crimes out of Riverside County, which has businesses moving in and thriving.
“I have businesses that are moving here. People are moving into this county and bringing their businesses into our county because they know that it’s safer for their business here. They know that it’s safer for their kids. And we’re extremely proud of that,” Bianco said.
Despite there being a nationwide shortage of law enforcement, Bianco said they are having the opposite problem in his county.
“We don’t have a recruitment problem here. I will say we do have somewhat of a retention problem because we’re losing a lot of people to other states,” Bianco said. “We don’t lose them to other agencies. We lose them because California is in decline. And they’re going to states where they can better raise their family, a better environment for their kids.”
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Newsom’s office told Fox News Digital that beginning in 2025, California is implementing new public safety laws that “take a smart, strategic approach and build on the state’s work to address crime.”
“California is beginning the new year by building on its robust laws and strategies to protect communities and maintain the state’s near-record-low crime rates,” a spokesperson for Newsom’s office shared in a statement.
His office added that Newsom signed into law “the most significant bipartisan effort to crack down on property and retail crime in modern California history.”
In addition, his office said the California Highway Patrol launched operations throughout the state, targeting regional hot spots and areas of public safety concern.
These operations were enacted to put a stop to organized criminal behavior, gun violence, gang activity, fentanyl and other illegal drugs, and sideshows and street racing in Oakland, San Francisco, Bakersfield, and San Bernardino.
“Together, these collaborative efforts with local law enforcement have led to more than 4,000 arrests, over 3,500 stolen vehicles recovered, and hundreds of illegal firearms seized,” Newsom’s office said.
Right now, Bianco said their biggest concern in Riverside County is drugs, with fentanyl being the number one problem.
“The fact that we’ve had such an open border and the flood of fentanyl into the country, it’s infected every type of drug. So there’s no such thing now as a ‘safe drug,’” Bianco explained.
“We’re putting a lot of effort into our drug interdiction and drug cases against our cartels in Southern California. But at the same time, we have other issues, and we’re suffering from the same retail theft issues that everyone is suffering from.”
Bianco said what makes them stand out against liberal counties is that they are actively pursuing criminals and holding them accountable.
“We’re actually keeping criminals out of our area because they know that we don’t stop until we catch them. And it’s honestly not rocket science in law enforcement. If you’re doing the right thing and you’re doing the enforcement part of it, criminals want the path of least resistance. And if they know they’re going to get caught or there’s a fear of getting caught increased in one location over the other, they’ll go to the place where it’s less,” Bianco said.
The decline in California is something Bianco said he has witnessed and said it is “100% the failure of the state government that has caused the decline of California,” adding that “we have to be brutally honest and admit that progressive policies, progressive agenda and ideological drive for political purposes has been the destruction of California.”
“I think we’re at a point in society, particularly in California, where people are fed up, and they are begging for someone that they can trust. And I think that my experience, my 32 years in law enforcement now and six as the sheriff of Riverside County, people can look to me and know that they may not like what they hear, but they know it’s going to be the truth. And they know that what I’m doing is in the best interests of someone else, not myself.”