Sacramento Bee sues city seeking release of records in Darell Richards police killing
The Sacramento Bee is suing the city of Sacramento for failing to release documents regarding the police killing of Darell Richards, more than two years after the shooting.
The city is withholding the documents despite a law the California Legislature passed in 2018 that requires their release, The Bee alleges. The law, called SB 1421, the Right to Know Act, requires police agencies to release records related to the investigation and discipline of police officers when officers use force that results in serious injury or death, commit sexual assault on a member of the public, or engage in dishonesty in certain situations.
The city has known since early 2019 that SB 1421 applies to officer-involved shootings that occurred prior to Jan. 1, 2019, according to The Bee’s lawsuit.
“Our lawsuit seeks records of vital importance to citizens of Sacramento,” said Karl Olson, a San Francisco lawyer who specializes in Public Records Act litigation and is representing The Bee in the lawsuit. “The issue of community policing has never been more important, and there have been conflicting stories about the officer-involved shooting of Darell Richards. The public needs answers about what happened. The City’s long delays in disclosing records, which clearly should have been made public a long time ago, left The Bee no choice but to sue. We look forward to vindicating The Bee’s right of access to public records in court, and we hope this lawsuit will result in the City taking steps to speed up disclosure of records under the Public Records Act.”
Shortly after the shooting, the department released video footage and audio files of the incident, but not the other documents required to be released under SB 1421.
In a statement from City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood, the city said “we fully agree that our response in this case has fallen short of the expectations our community has of us, and that we have of ourselves.” The statement added “we agree with the central premise of the Sacramento Bee’s lawsuit as it seeks nothing more than what we have committed to achieve.”
“Processing the records requests in this particular case faced additional challenges because of a change in the law (SB 1421) that went into effect after the Darell Richards shooting,” the statement reads. “In anticipation of the effective date of this law, the police department made important procedural changes to streamline administrative investigations in order to better facilitate timely release of investigative information. Because these procedural changes were not in place at the time of the Richards shooting, these records must be thoroughly reviewed and separated from information the law does not allow to be released. The police department, however, continues to produce documents and post them to its Public Transparency page.”
Wood said the city is “working to improve our processes for fulfilling records requests and ensure that public information is released as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
The Sacramento Bee filed a public records request for the documents on Sept. 25, 2020. The Bee requested: “Any and all records from the use-of-force investigation into the actions of officers Todd Edgerton and Patrick Cox, regarding the shooting of Darell Richards in 2018.”
The city withheld the documents for more than seven months. On Friday, after The Bee threatened to sue, the city released a seven-page “administrative review” report. But the city continues to withhold more than 700 pages from a June report. That report contains statements from witnesses and relatives, officer observations, detective follow-up, forensic diagrams, autopsy findings, and a February 2020 memo from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. The lawsuit asks the judge to order the city to release the records.
Sacramento police fatally shot Richards, a 19-year-old Black man, on Sept. 5, 2018. At around 11:30 p.m., dispatchers received a call about a man wearing a mask and pointing a firearm at people along Broadway near Tower Cafe. More than three hours later, after a SWAT search including K9s, police found Richards hiding under a stairwell of a Curtis Park home. Richards possessed a pellet gun modeled after a 9 mm handgun and also a knife. The two officers fired shots that struck Richards seven times. He died at the scene.
The department said Richards pointed the gun at the officers, but the video footage does not show it. One officer’s body camera was off at the time. Richards showed signs of suffering from mental health issues, and was scheduled for a psychiatric evaluation, his family and friends have said. Richards’ family has filed a lawsuit against the city in federal court, which is still active.
“When interviewed by the homicide unit, Sergeant Edgerton and Officer Cox believed deadly force was appropriate because the suspect possessed a handgun and raised it towards officers when encountered,” the report released Friday reads. “Both employees articulated that the suspect’s actions were an indication of a threat of deadly resistance and posed a threat of death to them and other officers.”
The Richards killing occurred just six months after Sacramento police fatally shot Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard after they mistook his cellphone for a gun, gaining national attention. The department released more than 3,000 pages of SB 1421 documents for that shooting.
One of the officers who shot Richards – Cox – is no longer a city employee. He was an employee in June 2019, but was no longer by September 2020, according to city rosters The Bee obtained through public records requests. It’s unclear if Cox was terminated, retired or quit. City Manager Howard Chan has said he has fired six officers since 2016, but has not said which ones.
This story was originally published May 5, 2021 at 4:34 PM.
