Jack Kearns, who served as Sacramento’s chief of police from 1977 to 1992, dies at 87

John “Jack” Kearns, who served as chief of the Sacramento Police Department from 1977 to 1992, died on June 19. He was 87.

Kearns spent his entire career with the Sacramento Police Department, beginning as an officer in 1956 and rising through the ranks to become police chief. He presided over the department as it faced soaring crime rates in the 1980s, and upon his retirement, he pointed to the department’s relationship with the broader Sacramento community as his crowning achievement.

“He was so humble, and he really just absolutely loved his job — it was his entire life,” Rosanne Smith Kearns, his wife, told The Sacramento Bee last week. “And he just cared so much about the city of Sacramento.”

Kearns was born in Sacramento in 1933, into an Irish family where policing was tradition. His father served in the Sacramento Police Department for 33 years, his uncle served as a warden in Folsom Prison, his two aunts were some of the first female matrons in the Sacramento Police Department and another uncle worked in the New York Police Department.

For Kearns, it was never a question of if he would join a police force, but when. After graduating from Christian Brothers High School and serving for three years in the Marine Corps, he signed on to the police force as an officer.

As he climbed the ranks of the department over the subsequent decades, he went to night school and obtained a bachelor’s degree from public administration from Sacramento State. A master’s degree in social science soon followed. In 1969, he attended the FBI National Academy and obtained a certificate in police management.

Kearns was appointed chief of police in 1977, 21 years after first donning his police uniform. For the next 15 years, he would preside over a police department plagued by rising crime rates, but looking to expand their engagement with the broader Sacramento community.

Rick Braziel, a former Sacramento Police chief who began his career during Kearns’ time as chief, told The Bee that Kearns was known within the department for his “no-excuses attitude” and his love of the Pig Bowl — an annual football game between the Sacramento Police Department and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.

“He had high expectations for his officers, and he expected them to perform,” Braziel said. “No excuses, just get it done. But the work he had me do really shaped me career — if it had not been for that, I’m convinced I would not have gone on to do what I did.”

Rosanne told The Bee that her husband was “exceedingly humble,” and never bragged about or even mentioned his accomplishments as Chief. Still, she said, he was proud of the work he did to engage with the Sacramento community, and specifically with communities of color. In a move that Rosanne called “ahead of his time,” Kearns made it a practice to meet with Latino community leaders to get feedback on law-enforcement tactics his department would use.

Kearns also was proud of his role in suggesting, and helping pass, one of the nation’s first laws that required a 15-day waiting period for gun purchases, Rosanne said. He approached Legislator Lloyd Connelly about the bill after feeling frustration about the high numbers of domestic violence incidents that occurred in the city with recently-purchased firearms. According to Rosanne, once the law was passed, police chiefs from all over the country called Kearns for suggestions on how to implement similar measures in their communities.

“He was just extremely dedicated, and he wanted to make things better,” Rosanne said.

Rosanne Kearns added that throughout his career, Kearns cared deeply about the officers on the force, and took it extremely hard when officers were injured or killed in the line of duty. At the end of his time with the agency, he helped establish a memorial in North Sacramento that honors fallen officers.

Fellow officers described him as a “street cop, through-and-though” — a relic of a time when police officers patrolled the streets on foot, stopping petty crime as it occurred. Upon his retirement, younger policemen on the force told The Bee at the time that they viewed Kearns as role model.

But even with his old-school reputation, Kearns told The Bee in 1993 that he was pleased to see the way the department had progressed over the years, pointing to the diversification of the force and the increase in community partnerships.

“When I came on the department ... we were a closed community, and we never really interacted with the community except in the reporting of criminal activities and the investigation of those crimes,” Kearns told The Bee at the time. “I think we’ve come an awfully long way since then.”

Kearns’ first wife Nancy Sharel Hunt Kearns, died in 2012. They had no children. He married Rosanne in 2013, living out the remainder of his life with her in the capital region. In addition to her, Kearns is survived by cousins and the Tafta family, close family friends “whom he viewed like his own kids,” Rosanne said.

Per Kearns’ request, no services will be held. Any remembrances can be sent to Christian Brothers High School.

This story was originally published June 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM.