Sacramento police response to violent downtown protests will undergo independent review
Sacramento’s police watchdogs will review hours of video showing the police handling of demonstrations in recent months and come up with policy recommendations for the City Council.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg proposed the idea Tuesday in response to growing concerns that police have treated white supremacists more favorably than counter-protesters during recent confrontations downtown, and also more favorably than those who participated in the largely peaceful protests against police brutality over the summer. Pro-Trump demonstrators have been gathering in downtown Sacramento most Saturdays since Trump’s election loss, including some from the same groups that stormed the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6.
“At all times, the Sacramento police department made decisions we thought best protected life, both our officers’ lives and lives in of our community, and property,” Police Chief Daniel Hahn said during a 90-minute long police presentation to defend the police response. “One group, based on what some experts say, is a white extremist group that seems to desire to return to our past, while the other group seems to want to destroy our form of government altogether. Regardless of their ideologies, they are both violent and put our community in danger.”
The department has assigned more than 2,000 officers to the recent protests, racking up more than 70,000 hours in overtime totaling more than $600,000, police officials said. The police presentation was followed by an hour of public comment, during which about 30 people called in, mostly voicing concerns about police treatment.
“We have seen that Sacramento Police know how to control a protest without using violence on protesters, because they are exercising this restraint for certain people, while abusing others,” Black Lives Matter Sacramento founder Tanya Faison told The Sacramento Bee. “The people have been fighting these inequities for years here in Sacramento.”
Most council members praised Hahn for the department’s handling of the protests.
“We can at once have the best police chief in the country, which we do, and a great police department,” Steinberg said. “There’s still profound issues of trust and distrust. And some people don’t get treated right and don’t get treated well.”
Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, who requested the discussion, said she disagreed with statements that imply the protest groups are equal, and defended the Sacramento Antifa group.
“We have groups that are known white supremacy groups whose induction includes things like committing a hate crime,” said Valenzuela, who represents the central city. “That is different from a group of people coming out into the street because they feel like they’re trying to defend unhoused people and their neighbors and community. You may not agree with their tactics and that’s up to each person’s decision. I’m not out there, that’s not my way, but that’s not for me to criticize.”
Councilman Sean Loloee said he is “100% against white supremacy”, but that he does see the groups as equal.
“I don’t think I’d look at the group Antifa as a counter-protester organization,” he said. “They’re equally in the same scale as the Proud Boys. Bottom line of it is either group creates a danger for the residents, for the people that wanna enjoy our city. Both organizations are despicable.”
Valenzuela then shared her screen and played a 20-minute video showing the police response to large protests following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd during which officers declared unlawful assemblies, ordered crowds to disperse, marched in formations and fired rubber bullets and tear gas. It juxtaposed that response with footage from the Proud Boy protests, where it appeared at times officers allowed white supremacist groups to roam more freely without ordering them to disperse and without firing less-lethal weapons.
Councilwoman Mai Vang said it appeared the tactics were not “equally deployed” and asked why the department had not declared unlawful assemblies.
Office of Public Safety Accountability Director LaTesha Watson, who the council hired last year, will lead the review and could hire an independent consultant to help, Steinberg said. The Sacramento Community Police Review Commission will also be involved. Neither Watson nor the police commission report to the city manager or police chief, and are intended to be fully independent. The recommendations would need to be adopted by the council in order to be implemented.
“Let’s take all this raw emotion tonight and let’s move it in a direction that is constructive that maybe leads to some reconciliation but that lays it all out for us to be able to see what went right and what went wrong,” Steinberg said. “And if there were excesses, how it is we remedy those.”
Valenzuela has been raising concerns with police handling of the protests since her first meeting on the council Dec. 15, when she requested a public discussion. On Jan. 5, the council discussed the topic, but shut out the public, in a potential violation of the state law. The next day, white supremacist groups including the Proud Boys stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unprecedented act of domestic terrorism, prompting additional scrutiny of the local demonstrations.
