Sacramento police reform panel says it hasn’t ‘been taken seriously’ by City Council
A Tuesday punctuated by swift change to police brutality in Minnesota turned into a night that exemplified a journey unfulfilled for the Sacramento Community Police Commission.
It was on April 13 that the Brooklyn Center police officer who mistakenly used her service weapon to kill Daunte Wright had resigned; her police chief also quit. The following day, Kim Potter would be charged with second-degree manslaughter in Wright’s death.
The nation’s eyes were already firmly fixed on Minnesota as the Minneapolis trial of Derek Chauvin, found guilty in the death of George Floyd a week later, was lumbering toward a conviction.
But in Sacramento, a city that itself has reckoned with Black men’s deaths at the hands of its own law enforcement, the leader of the city’s all-volunteer police commission wasn’t surprised to see even incremental change get tabled.
On the agenda that night was a 55-page report to the City Council with recommendations for police reform by chairman Mario Guerrero and the commission.
Guerrero — one of many on the commission and in the community frustrated by years of City Council indecision and deferral — might have already known the outcome. He said just creating a commission without voting on its recommendations is nothing to be proud of.
“I don’t think it has been taken seriously,” Guerrero told The Sacramento Bee after the meeting. “You created a commission that has no teeth.”
Community activists say the inaction by the City Council is contributing to the perception that the commission lacks influence.
“If the commission was powerful, you would hear more of the commission on the news,” said Berry Accius, founder of Voice of the Youth. “You would hear more of their thought-process. You would hear more about the police commission. And, until you called me, I even forgot we had a police commission.”
Accius says because the commission is merely a panel of advisers, change to policing policies seem to be going nowhere.
“We’ve always asked for the police commission to have more power. They are unable to navigate with purpose and intentionality with the restraints that they have. So it’s almost as if the police commission has been nonexistent.”
No vote on three years of recommendations
The citizen oversight group has submitted recommendations to implement significant police reforms each of the past three years, and the City Council has failed to vote on any of them.
Since the city established its first oversight panel in 2015, two have dissolved amid criticism they were having no real effect on the way the Police Department does its business.
Guerrero said he’s frustrated that some on the City Council still want more discussion, even though his group of 11 volunteers have conducted extensive research and incorporated community and police input for three sets of recommendations.
“You need to vote on these things,” Guerrero told The Bee. “You don’t have to approve them. Although, I hope you do. At some point, you need to make a decision.”
In an effort to do just that, Guerrero submitted for a vote only the key recommendations that he felt needed immediate action at that April 13 City Council meeting.
A heated debate ignited after Mayor Darrell Steinberg made it clear he wanted immediate action on Guerrero’s list of key recommendations. Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, who said Guerrero’s list was consistent with the public’s demands for police accountability, followed with a motion to adopt those recommendations.
“We cannot continue to keep triaging a broken system with law enforcement,” said the councilwoman, who represents the city’s central districts. Valenzuela said the calls for change rang loudly during last summer’s protests “after murder, after murder of Black people in our state and our country.”
Request for ‘intelligent debate’ on police reform
Councilman Jeff Harris, who represents East Sacramento and South Natomas, said they need more discussion to determine which of these recommendations could be achieved and which would result in repercussions.
“Just because we’ve done a poor job in the past does not mean we adopt these recommendations this evening,” Harris said.
The discussion was all but quashed when City Attorney Susana Alcala-Wood told the council that Guerrero’s presentation was listed on the meeting’s agenda as a item for receiving — not an item that could be voted on. The City Council agreed to revisit the commission’s recommendations in two or three weeks.
Steinberg argued during the meeting that the real resistance to these recommendations comes from a misguided idea that anyone from outside law enforcement can tell the Police Department “what to do and how to do their business.” He said that’s the whole point of having a citizen oversight commission.
In an interview with The Bee, Steinberg said he can understand the worry about the commission not being taken seriously by the City Council.
“I think there’s some merit to their concerns. But it is changing, and it’s changing in real-time.”
The mayor said the commission’s recommendation to change the use-of-force policy language would appear as an action item on the City Council’s agenda Tuesday evening. He said council members would have an opportunity to discuss the issue and decide which version of the policy language is best for Sacramento.
On Monday, the Mayor’s Office announced that Steinberg will be proposing at this week’s meeting that the City Council adopt policy language that “deadly force shall only be used as a last resort.”
“Last resort means that peace officers shall use tactics and techniques that may persuade the suspect to voluntarily comply or may mitigate the need to use a higher level of force to resolve the situation safely,” according to the mayor’s announcement.
Harris has said it would be “extremely premature” to vote on the recommendations without responses from the Police Department, the City Attorney’s Office, the Office of Public Safety Accountability and the police union. Harris said he understands the commission’s “continuous fight to get the attention from the council that they deserve.”
He said he appreciates the commission’s work, and thinks some of its recommendations are excellent, but some are not legal to impose right now and others he would oppose.
“We never had an intelligent debate and discussion about these recommendations, and that is really on the council,” Harris said during the April 13 meeting. “For my part, I accept my responsibility in not trying to bring to our attention a more focused discussion about these recommendations, because some of them are very substantial.”
The commission has been recommending since 2018 that the city adopt language similar to San Francisco’s that ensures deadly force be used only as a last resort. That was one of the key recommendations Guerrero submitted for a vote on April 13.
Changing that language in the department’s use-of-force policy would bring about a huge reform, Guerrero said, adding that he’s seen it implemented only in San Francisco.
“We absolutely value human life. Peace officers should do everything in their power to de-escalate, even in dangerous situations,” Guerrero said.
For its part, the Sacramento Police Department revised its use-of-force policy in September 2019, adding required intervention techniques when dealing with people who appear to be mentally ill, and other changes. And the department again amended the policy on June 8, removing the “carotid” neck restraint as an acceptable use-of-force, after Gov, Gavin Newsom signaled his support for a statewide ban on the technique. That was in response to the murder of Floyd under the knee of Chauvin, then a Minneapolis police officer.
Another commission recommendation was that it would be given the chance to review and comment on the department’s own policy changes, or items voted on by the City Council, before they are made. That would include general orders dealing with body-worn cameras, foot pursuit, use of force, discipline or any order being considered by the commission.
Steinberg, however, said the commission’s role is to voice the concerns of the public and offer recommendations that it should expect to be considered by the City Council. He said it would be the responsibility of the city’s newly hired inspector general to review police use-of-force cases; not the commission.
No ‘further explanation is needed,’ commissioner says
Kiran Savage-Sangwan, who has been a member of the police commission since 2017, said the police commission will only work when those in authority seriously consider its recommendations, “and that hasn’t happened in the past.”
“That speaks for itself,” Savage-Sangwan said. “The commission already lacks relevancy.”
She told the City Council during the April 13 meeting that this “transformational change in policing” is intended to save the lives of civilians and police officers.
“It’s more protective of human life than the state’s standard,” Savage-Sangwan told The Bee. “It would make Sacramento stand out as a leader in this state.”
Savage-Sangwan, whose term on the commission ended this month because she’s moving out of town, said three years of police reform recommendations without any action by the City Council shows exactly how seriously the police commission is viewed by Sacramento’s elected leaders.
The time for discussion is over, she said, and the City Council needs to vote on these recommendations now.
“I don’t feel that further explanation is needed,” Savage-Sangwan said.
The police commission initially was created in 2015 in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. It replaced the Community Racial Profiling Commission, which had “experienced diminished participation due to the limited authority (given to it) beyond traffic stop data analysis,” according to a city staff report.
Critics said the commission created in 2015 didn’t have enough oversight power and was replaced in 2017, when the City Council created the latest version of the commission to address those concerns.
Jay King, a former commission member, said the panel is filled with dedicated volunteers. But he said their work will not produce significant results until changes are made at the state level to laws that protect law enforcement officials.
“No, I don’t think (the police commission) is taken seriously,” King told The Bee. “But I think they know there’s nothing to take seriously.”
Mayor says police commission is ‘vitally important’
Steinberg said the commission’s police reform recommendations have unfortunately been “ping-ponging” between the commission, the Office of Public Safety Accountability, city management and the City Council, and some of that is the result of a system of government “with a lot of cooks in the kitchen” with their own points of view.
He said the police commission is “vitally important,” and they’re going to make sure that the City Council hears and strongly considers its recommendations.
Richard Falcone, a member of the police commission, called-in during the April 13 meeting and urged the council to “seriously” consider the recommendations presented.
“Please help me to know that the work that I have been putting in and the work of my colleagues has not been in vain,” Falcone said.
Guerrero, the current chairman, said he remains hopeful the City Council will take some action when it meets again and approve some meaningful police reform that Sacramento can be proud of.
“Every commissioner has to be optimistic, or else we would all quit,” Guerrero told The Bee. “The only thing we can do is continue to advocate for the public.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Sacramento police reform panel says it hasn’t ‘been taken seriously’ by City Council."
