Sacramento mayor wants new Inspector General to investigate police use-of-force incidents
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg wants the city to create an Inspector General position to investigate Sacramento Police Department use of force incidents that result in serious injury or death.
Steinberg announced the proposal Monday morning amid a national outcry for public officials to pass policies to reduce police brutality, sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The mayor also announced details for an idea he’s previously floated: an overhaul of the city’s 911 system to shift response from armed officers to trained civilians in responding to calls that don’t involve criminal activity. That change would require about two years to complete, and would include transferring an undisclosed amount of funding away from the police department, he said.
“In addition to these two proposals I will also put forward today a declaration committing to dedicating the remainder of my election term over the next four and a half years to do all I can to end systemic racism in Sacramento,” Steinberg said during a virtual City Hall press conference Monday.
“I am not interested in pilots or in years of playing around the edges,” Steinberg said. “I believe we must set a new policy in the capital city that represents the beginnings of systematic change.”
The Inspector General would make public findings on whether department policies were violated and whether officers should be disciplined, he said. Then, the existing Sacramento Community Police Review Commission could take the Inspector General’s findings and make its own public recommendation on officer discipline or termination.
Making both changes would require a City Council vote, which Steinberg said he wants to happen quickly.
City Manager Howard Chan expressed support for Steinberg’s proposals, calling them “important and significant” in a news release from the mayor’s office.
“It is incumbent upon all public servants to listen earnestly and intently to the communities they serve, to embrace new and better ways of doing things and to transform words into meaningful actions,” Chan said in the release.
Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn said in a statement: “The proposals discussed today would build upon changes that have already been implemented within our department. The Sacramento Police Department is committed to transparency and ensuring our policies and procedures best serve our department and community.”
‘Not the county’s inspector general program’
Sacramento County has an inspector general tasked with overseeing the Sheriff’s Office, but the position has been controversial.
Sheriff Scott Jones in 2018 locked out then-Inspector General Rick Braziel from county facilities after Braziel released a critical report on the fatal shooting of Mikel McIntyre on Highway 50 in 2017. The county then left the position empty for about a year before hiring former Brentwood Police Chief Mark Evenson in December.
The county’s inspector general is tasked with providing independent oversight over the Sheriff’s Office, but is not allowed to investigate personnel-related matters, according to a county staff report from a the Board of Supervisors meeting when they hired Evenson.
The city’s position would investigate personnel-related matters, Steinberg said, due to a new state law. Senate Bill 1421, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2019, says personnel records must be made public if they involve a police use of force incident that resulted in serious bodily injury or death.
“This is not the county’s inspector general program, even as it was intended to work,” Steinberg said. “I believe this is significantly stronger.”
The ultimate decision of whether to terminate officers would remain with the city manager, Steinberg said.
“We still would maintain the city manager making the ultimate determination but instead of it being a quiet and secret process, the city manager would have to look at public findings, public conclusions and public recommendations for discipline if warranted,” Steinberg said. “Then the city manger has to make that decision in the full light of the public knowing what has been recommended by an independent inspector general and independent police commission.”
Tanya Faison, a founder of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, said the city should empower elected officials to terminate officers instead of the city manager.
“Oversight is necessary, but the power to take action is necessary,” Faison said. “An inspector general is only able to provide suggestions. We will need much more than oversight to get the change that is long overdue.”
That change would require an amendment to the city charter, which would need to be approved by voters.
Pastor Les Simmons, who resigned as the police commission’s first chair due to frustration over its lack of power, said he would like to see that change as well, but praised the mayor for a step in the right direction.
“The mayor and City Council members need to commit to holding the city manager accountable for the broader agenda as well as taking seriously the recommendations of the inspector general,” said Simmons, who’s running for City Council. “Should he oppose an inspector general recommendation, he should be required to publicly state his reason for doing so.”
When would 911 overhaul happen?
Steinberg’s idea to send trained civilians instead of armed officers to some 911 calls is modeled after similar programs in Eugene, Ore., and a pilot program in Portland, Ore.
To implement that change, Steinberg proposes moving funding from the police department and creating a new city department by July 2022. The amount of funding to be shifted will be determined over the next two months after evaluating call data, Steinberg said.
In addition to homelessness calls, people calling because of a person in a mental health crisis should also not be handled by police, whose uniforms, guns and batons can be triggering despite the compassion he’s seen them display in such situations, Steinberg said.
The mayor also suggested immediately moving $5 million from the general fund to establish the new non-law enforcement responder unit. It’s unclear where in the general fund that money will come from. The general fund, which pays for most city services like police, fire and parks, is stretched thin due to a loss of more than $90 million in expected revenue due to the coronavirus.
Other police reform ideas
Councilwoman Angelique Ashby said she supports the mayor’s two ideas and called on her colleagues to end no-knock raids, a tactic that has drawn renewed scrutiny after the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her Kentucky home.
She also asked for a report from police on the handling of the recent protests, and for Sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers to start wearing body cameras.
“They’re both a big part of what happens in the city and we need to be able to see what’s going on there,” Ashby said. “It’s way past time.”
Several protesters were seriously injured with rubber bullets in recent weeks, though it’s unclear which police agency caused which injury. If Sacramento police were responsible for any of the injuries, the mayor said he is “certainly open” to the idea of the new inspector general investigating those, he said.
Ashby also called on the county to reopen and reinvest in a mental health facility where people who are having a mental crisis can be taken “besides jail or the ER.”
Councilmen of color, Rick Jennings, Allen Warren, Larry Carr and Eric Guerra, released a joint proposal last week calling for the council to adopt the policies in the “Eight Can’t Wait” use of force policy framework, re-examine policy changes the police commission recommended following the 2018 Stephon Clark shooting, and make an effort to increase diversity in the department.
Steinberg asked new Office of Public Safety and Accountability Director Latesha Watson to review whether the department is following the “Eight Can’t Wait” framework and report back to the council.
Simmons and Councilwoman-Elect Katie Valenzuela are calling for the council to “defund” at least $10 million from the $157.5 million police budget and reinvest it in services for youth in the city’s underserved neighborhoods. More than two dozen people called into a meeting last week to demand the council make that move.
Steinberg said he “appreciated the provocation” from Valenzuela but prefers to first identify the reason to move the money, such as the 911 overhaul, before doing it.
Steinberg also supports state bills that would create an independent review unit within the Attorney General’s Office and would ban the carotid neck restraint in departments statewide. The Sacramento Police Department suspended the restraint after Newsom called for a statewide ban. It was the only neck hold the department had permitted, the mayor’s news release said.
The department is investigating an incident where an officer placed a Black teenager in a neck restraint in the early morning hours of June 1 after a peaceful protest downtown had ended.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 10:41 AM.
