‘Enough is enough’: Public defenders in Sacramento rally for police reforms
Public defenders in Sacramento and across the country rallied Monday to protest police brutality and renew calls for racial justice two weeks after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police ignited days of protests and triggered worldwide outrage.
The noontime demonstration at the Gordon Schaber Courthouse in downtown Sacramento mirrored other planned demonstrations by court-appointed attorneys in what was being labeled a nationwide day of solidarity.
“The message is: ‘What is the action?’ I’m interested in talking about a way forward” toward instituting lasting criminal justice reform, Mark Slaughter, a supervising Sacramento County public defender and one of the local organizers, said Monday morning before the rally.
“Demonstrations are helpful and constructive,” Slaughter continued. “But this shouldn’t just be a meme or a social media post. Getting involved is part of moving forward. I’m hopeful that this momentum turns into constructive action.”
Public defenders from Placer and Yolo counties were also expected to attend the Sacramento rally. They joined attorneys from public defenders’ offices in more than 25 California counties, said Sacramento County deputy public defender Quoc To, one of the local rally’s organizers.
“Police violence and deaths at the hands of police are manifestations of the inequities of the criminal legal system. We’re reminding people that we stand in solidarity and that we need to look at meaningful and systemic change in all areas that we can,” said San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju, a leader of Monday’s nationwide effort who is pressing for a slate of police reforms in his city and statewide.
“Public defenders’ work at its core is racial justice work,” Raju said.
In the months since the coronavirus pandemic upended California’s judicial system, long-sought reforms from jail depopulation to zero bail have been enacted, at least temporarily, pushed ahead in response to the health crisis and the potential for the virus to turn jails and prisons into “super-spreaders” of the disease.
But the deaths of Floyd under a white officer’s knee, and Breonna Taylor, the Louisville first responder shot dead by police while she slept as officers conducted a no-knock raid, trained the spotlight even more intensely on police abuses and their impact on the black community, racial justice and the need for deeper, long-lasting change.
Charges against the Minneapolis officers and calls in other cities to defund law enforcement have come in the wake of Floyd’s death.
The use of chokeholds and carotid restraints like those that killed Floyd and another black man, Eric Garner, several years earlier on Staten Island in New York now top the list of proposed police reforms. Sacramento has already ordered police to stop using the hold.
In Minneapolis, after days of fiery protest, the City Council voted to “dismantle” its embattled force.
“We read police reports every day, we see the abuse,” said Martin Jones, a criminal public defender in Placer County, who was not at the rally. “There’s a language they use, the euphemisms they use, ‘pain compliance techniques,’ ‘... took a fighting stance.’ I’m heartened by the scale and the scope of the protests. I have hope for young people, that they may put an end to these practices.”
Amid the reforms and calls for change, Slaughter, who is black, says law enforcement is “an integral justice partner,” but needs to understand implicit biases and be responsive to implicit biases in the community and within the justice community.
In San Francisco, defenders spoke plainly of the brutality that led to Floyd’s death and the continued erosion of trust of the legal system in the black community and other communities of color.
“The criminal legal system’s abject failure to hold police accountable for their unjustified acts of excessive force and perpetual violations of the constitutional rights of people of color fosters the type of arrogance we see in (Minneapolis police officer) Derek Chauvin’s face as he snuffs out George Floyd’s life,” San Francisco deputy public defender Rebecca Young said at the San Francisco rally at the city’s Hall of Justice. “Until people with the power to hold police accountable continue to do so, communities of color will continue to distrust police and politicians.”
Raju has demanded major changes in San Francisco’s policing after receiving video of a January incident in which a San Francisco police officer appeared to use the same knee tactic used on Floyd against a 19-year-old San Francisco man.
Raju wants a police general order barring officers from applying pressure on a person’s head or neck while they are on the ground and said potentially fatal detention holds should be classified as police misconduct that leads to the officer’s immediate firing.
“Anyone paying attention can see that our country is plagued by police use of excessive force and violence, especially against communities of color,” Raju said last week in announcing the proposed San Francisco Police Department reforms. “Police who abuse their power should not be wearing a badge. ... A massive overhaul of our policing system is needed and it must be driven by the wisdom of the communities most impacted by systemic abuse.”
In Sacramento, Yolo County Public Defender Tracie Olson was among the rally speakers and said the days ahead present a unique opportunity to work toward lasting reforms.
“It’s time to say ‘enough is enough’ police violence in the name of the law and mass incarceration in the name of public safety,” Olson said following the rally. “We’ve been talking about these issues for more than 50 years – from Watts to Ferguson to Sacramento in 2018. If we don’t take the opportunity to make these changes, we’re going to be here in another 50 years.
“It’s finally become an issue that everyone is paying attention to. People are frustrated. Our charge is to begin to make that change now.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2020 at 6:59 PM.
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