Tragic Sacramento murder should make California rethink releasing some prisoners from jail
What do we say to the family and friends of Mary Tibbitts, who was brutally murdered in her Land Park home by a man who allegedly killed her two dogs, attempted to sexually assault her and then set her house on fire?
Do we apologize to Tibbitts and those who loved her because her murder is a twisted reminder that some criminals shouldn’t be turned loose for whatever reason, including the political argument that cash bail for inmates should be abolished because it is racist?
Should we confess to Tibbitts and her family that we are so invested in our own political ideologies that we can’t admit some people need to be incarcerated because they present a real threat to the public if they are turned loose?
Or, given the political climate in Sacramento, do we play the liberal card and offer thoughts and prayers on social media — or remain completely silent altogether? Do we then pretend that the murder of a 61-year-old woman in her home really isn’t emblematic of the real danger posed by some inmates being turned loose from the Main Jail in downtown Sacramento?
Sacramento Police arrested a suspect in the Tibbitts case named Troy Davis. He is 51 and homeless. He has a long criminal record. The night before Tibbitts was murdered on Friday, Davis was apparently captured on the Ring doorbell camera of a Land Park home, masturbating.
If Davis is ultimately found guilty in the Tibbitts murder, what would we say then? That it was an aberration? Will we argue that this case is overblown because it happened in a well-heeled neighborhood? Will this heinous murder then turn into a screed about how the media doesn’t cover the deaths of people of color with nearly the same fervor as those victims in affluent zip codes?
I can hear it already.
But here is an alternative point to consider: Some criminals deserve to be locked up. You can argue otherwise, until or unless that criminal crosses your path or someone you love.
There has to be an acknowledgment that while our criminal justice system has often been unfair to people from marginalized communities, there are exceptions to every rule. Our criminal justice system has to account for those exceptions to keep everyone safe.
Any movement toward criminal justice reform that allows this to happen and simply shrugs it off is not one that protects the interests of the public.
On that note, right now we don’t really know why Davis was released from jail in June. Was it zero bail? Was it the order of a judge? Was it the call of a deputy district attorney? The Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail?
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Rodney Grassmann blamed it on politics.
“Judges then implement these laws and release subjects that fall into the zero bail which is the case here as the murder charges came days after the subject was released on the zero bail charges,” he told The Bee.
So the general public is caught between two ideological forces: Zero bail advocates on one side, people like Grassmann on the other.
The voters rejected ending cash bail last year, but the California Supreme Court has ruled that defendants can’t be jailed simply because they can’t afford bail. The justices did leave room for judges to consider criminal histories of defendants and whether it’s safe to turn a prisoner loose.
What happened in this case? Why was this prisoner released?
If Davis is convicted of this crime, what will we say then?
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
