Amid a ‘defund’ debate, Sacramento’s police force is larger than it’s been in years
Amid a national debate over reducing police department funding, the police force in the city of Sacramento is about to be larger than it’s been in 13 years.
Police officials say the steady increase in staffing is long overdue and contend the department needs even more officers to serve a rapidly-growing capital city. But activists argue the city’s decision to increase police staffing is troubling, especially as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the city budget.
When 32 recruits graduate from the academy this month, the Sacramento Police Department will have 713 sworn officers, according to department data. That’s more than the 2008 level of 710 officers, but below the 735 officers the department employed when the Great Recession began striking the city budget in 2007.
Sacramento cops have fled the suburbs for years, seeking better pay, less dangerous conditions and higher morale. This year, the department has been operating with roughly the same number of sworn officers it had in 2010, despite the city adding more than 47,000 residents since, a roughly 10% increase, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Many urban police forces across the country have faced the same situation, but Sacramento has stood out. In 2017, the force was one of the most understaffed in the nation when comparing the number of officers per capita for 16 cities of similar size, according to an FBI database. But the recession was 12 years ago, and the department is still smaller than it was in 2007, police officials point out. A Sacramento County grand jury report presented to the City Council last week called the department’s staffing situation a “crisis.”
To meet the demand, Officer Timothy Davis, president of the city police officers’ union, said the city needs to go beyond filling the 751 positions in this year’s budget. “Even if all the vacancies were filled, there would still not be enough police officers to meet the needs of this growing city of over half a million residents,” Davis said in a tweet earlier this month. “We encourage the City Council to find ways to increase authorized police staffing to ensure our community has the police resource they need to protect our community members on our streets, in their homes, and in their businesses.”
But activists say traditional data – comparing police staffing levels to other cities and pre-recession years – is irrelevant. The Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in May sparked a national reckoning on policing. Large protests occurred in cities across the country and in Sacramento, with many people of color sounding the alarm about police brutality and calling on officials to reduce police spending and shift money to youth, mental health, homelessness and other services to prevent crime.
“People in the community have been very clear with respect to the People’s Budget and wanting to defund the police,” said Sonia Lewis, a community activist. “(Adding officers) sounds like something that is completely opposite of what the people want.”
Of the roughly 3,500 people who responded to the People’s Budget survey this year, organized by a coalition of activists, 80% said they wanted less funding to go toward the police department and Sheriff’s Office.
But residents also value police services. Council members frequently refer to a recent city survey about coronavirus stimulus funds that found 83% of residents said uninterrupted police, fire and emergency medical services were extremely or very important.
Sacramento took heat for the budget the council adopted May 12, which included an all-time high police department allocation of $157.5 million. City officials project the department will spend about $2 million more than that this fiscal year, according to a Dec. 1 staff report.
That budget included the money for officers’ 3.5% raises, which they will receive next week. It also included money for new officers, who started the academy in July, exempt from a hiring freeze that city officials put in place when the pandemic hit.
Next month, 45 additional recruits will enter the academy, according to the police department.
Mayor’s response to police staffing
Mayor Darrell Steinberg responded to this summer’s social justice movement by announcing the city would hire an inspector general for police oversight and launch an overhaul of the city’s 911 response system, shifting response for some non-criminal calls away from police. The overhaul will result in reduced funding for the police department over the course of about two years, Steinberg said over the summer.
While those initiatives are underway, Steinberg said he wants to hire more police officers in order to allow Police Chief Daniel Hahn to “achieve his vision of community-oriented policing.”
“As long as we are being strategic about it and meeting the need where it is greatest, then we should (hire officers),” Steinberg said. “Whether it’s gang intervention or whether it’s doing what I know the chief wants to do, which is to try to bring back the beat cop.”
The department has 22 officers assigned to three gang enforcement teams. During the pandemic, homicides have spiked. A spate of shootings in May and June stemmed in part from disputes among gang members, police and Sheriff’s Office officials said at the time.
Instead of hiring more gang officers, the city should increase funding to nonprofit organizations like Advance Peace, which works to prevent youth community violence, said activist Flojaune Cofer. She’d also like to see funding go toward services to help residents suffering from the pandemic, especially now that the city’s federal coronavirus funds will be gone at the end of the month.
“We have communities that could use tangible resources right now,” said Cofer, who also chairs a city committee tasked with making recommendations about Measure U sales tax revenue. “We are in the middle of a pandemic. There is no evidence that having more sworn uniformed officers leads to better safety in a community.”
According to the grand jury report, having more officers is important partly because it allows time for “proactive policing” and relationship building. “Unfortunately, due to staffing shortages, this is now a rarity as officers spend much of their time going from call to call, thereby limiting the amount of officer time available for the community,” the grand jury report said.
Hiring officers will also reduce police overtime, which has skyrocketed in recent years, hitting nearly $14 million last year, Steinberg pointed out. But the council has the ability to reduce overtime on its own. Some cities, such as Los Angeles and Seattle, have voted to drastically reduce police overtime as a result of the “defund the police” movement.
Protests strain resources
In addition to the increase in homicides, the police this year have responded to a large number of protests, including protests against police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s killing and those urging officials to reduce police funding.
But in some cases, massive police response to protests can actually make things worse, activists say. The city is facing lawsuits by several people hit in the face with rubber bullets deployed by law enforcement during this summer’s protests. Last year, police corralled and arrested more than 80 people as a peaceful East Sacramento protest was dying down. That protest occurred after District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced she would not charge the two officers who fatally shot Stephon Clark after mistaking his cellphone for a gun.
If the council continues to increase police funding, it will show they were not listening to one of the main messages of the demonstrations, Cofer said.
“The reason people are protesting is because people feel the police are getting all the money and the people are getting none,” Cofer said. “The way to respond to that is not to give the police more money.”
More recently, for the past several Saturdays, pro-Trump groups have descended on downtown, at times clashing with counter-protesters. Last Saturday, the department deployed more than 150 officers to keep the groups separate, the department said in a news release. The protests have injured officers and further strained department resources in a year in which homicides are up at least 30%, the release said.
“Detectives who would normally follow-up on these cases have been tasked with protest duties every week,” the release said.
Will police spending continue to rise?
It’s unclear whether the proposed budget City Manager Howard Chan will release this spring will include an increased allocation for the police department.
It is clear, however, that the City Council will likely be pulled in two directions when it comes to police funding and staffing – a debate it largely dodged this year by adopting a budget early, about two weeks before Floyd was killed.
The council in recent years has deferred to Steinberg, Chan and Hahn on the topic, but next week, three new members will be sworn in. At least one of them strongly wants to reduce police funding.
“I don’t think we should be filling the vacancies,” said Katie Valenzuela, who will be sworn in Tuesday to represent the central city and Land Park. “We know we are going to have a tight budget year. It feels irresponsible to hire people when we won’t be able to sustain those positions.”
The city is estimated to lose at least $92 million in projected revenue due to the pandemic – a figure that will likely increase. Even before the pandemic, city officials projected the city’s rising pension payments and other long-term obligations could cause a $21 million deficit in fiscal year 2021-22, rising to $27 million in fiscal year 2022-23. Officials have not yet released new projections for those years.
Staff reporter Rosalio Ahumada contributed to this report.
This story was originally published December 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
