Jim Barnes vows to bring transparency, new vision if elected Sacramento’s next sheriff

The first homicide case Jim Barnes solved was one committed in 1972, a year before he was born.

Shannon Ritter was a 12-year-old junior high school student found on Sept. 30, 1972, strangled and drowned in a bathtub at a Rancho Cordova apartment where she had been babysitting three small children who slept though the attack.

The case went unsolved for decades until Barnes and fellow Sacramento sheriff’s Detective Angela Kirby were handed the cold case.

“At the time, it was the oldest cold case in Sacramento,” Barnes said. “It was 35 years old and actually occurred before I was born...

“The investigators at the time were on the right path, but they just didn’t have the technology to confirm it. And then 35 years later, we were able to get DNA through the cigarette butts at the scene.”

The result was the arrest and subsequent conviction of James Calvin Gaines, a Florida man who had been a suspect in the slaying early on but was released because of a lack of evidence.

Today, Gaines is 73 and serving his sentence in Mule Creek State Prison southeast of Sacramento.

Barnes, undersheriff to departing Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones, is 49 and running to replace his boss as the county’s first new sheriff since Jones won office 12 years ago.

He faces what will likely be a tough campaign against former sheriff’s Capt. Jim Cooper, who narrowly lost his bid for sheriff against Jones in 2010 and has served as an Elk Grove city councilman, mayor and assemblyman.

“Jim Cooper is a friend of mine,” Barnes said. “I’ve actually talked to him and said, ‘Hey, I think it’s important that we get out in front of the public and talk about the issues and let everybody decide.”

Whether the race will play out that way remains to be seen. The 2010 campaign between Cooper and Jones was one of the most bruising in Sacramento history, with Cooper using the backing of law enforcement unions and their cash in a race he ultimately lost by only 3,660 votes out of 360,000 cast.

Today, Barnes has the endorsements of the two major law enforcement unions – the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association and the Law Enforcement Managers’ Association – as well as the backing of Jones and former Sheriff John McGinness.

But he insists he is not just aiming to follow their policies. He said he wants to work to get community groups more involved in helping to address homelessness, get more help for treatment rather than just incarceration and increase transparency in a sheriff’s office that has been criticized for rejecting community oversight.

“Sheriff Jones has done a good job, but it’s time for me to take my vision into the organization and lead us into the future,” Barnes said. “And there are differences on what we’re going to do.”

Points to work at correctional center

Barnes said he already has worked to create teams to work with community groups on problems, that as commander at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center he reduced recidivism and that he wants more attention focused on root causes of why people are ending up in county jails.

“If it’s people experiencing homelessness, if it’s people with mental illness, we attach a team at the front end as they navigate the court process,” Barnes said. “Once they’re out, those relationships are already established, the plan is established and then we get them the help that they need when they get out.”

He also said he wants to expand the use of body cameras from patrol deputies and investigators to being used in the Main Jail and RCCC, something he said has been delayed by problems in the supply chain being able to deliver the devices.

The sheriff’s office has been one of the slower agencies to implement widespread use of body cameras in recent years, and Jones balked in 2019 at releasing records of deputy misconduct or abuse as required by a new law that took effect that year. The Sacramento Bee ultimately won a court order requiring the release of such records.

Jones also bristled at oversight in 2017 by then-county Inspector General Rick Braziel, a former Sacramento police chief who issued a report over the controversial shooting death by deputies of Mikel McIntyre, a 32-year-old Black man in the midst of a mental health crisis who was shot seven times after attacking deputies with large river rocks.

Braziel found deputies’ actions “excessive” and “unnecessary,” a finding that led Jones to lock Braziel out of the jails and county sheriff’s offices and resulted in Braziel leaving his post.

Barnes said he would not react the way Jones did if he were sheriff.

“I would not do that,” Barnes said. “I don’t know why exactly that was done, but I will tell you this. I like to work behind closed doors when I have disagreements with people and work through issues.

“Oversight is what we need. I mean, that’s what the community is calling for ... with body cameras. I think we have to do a better job of educating the public of what we do. We’re very, a lot of times reactive in some of our messaging ... I think we need to do a lot better job.”

‘Scott Jones 2.0’

Cooper has called Barnes a version of “Scott Jones 2.0,” but Barnes responded that Cooper – who has spent eight years as an assemblyman – is out of touch with today’s law enforcement needs.

“We don’t need 30-year-old policing techniques, and that’s when he grew up, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the tough on crime time,” Barnes said. “We are now where we need someone who’s going to be innovative.”

Barnes also has criticized Cooper for being a co-author and supporter of California’s so-called “sanctuary state law” passed in 2017 that prevents local law enforcement from turning over immigrants in the United States illegally to federal immigration authorities.

David Mora, the 39-year-old man who shot his three daughters and an adult man inside a Sacramento church in February, had been in custody in a Merced County jail before the shooting and immigration authorities had asked to be notified before he was released.

But Merced sheriff’s officials said they could not honor that request because of the law, and Mora was released four days before the rampage.

Barnes said such incidents particularly affect him. He was friends with slain Sacramento sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver, who was killed in 2014 along with Placer County sheriff’s Detective Michael Davis Jr. by a man from Mexico who was in the country illegally and had been deported previously.

“That’s a classic example,” Barnes said. “What’s it going to take? We’ve had too many incidents like the church shooting.”

Police family

Barnes, whose wife, Helena, spent 28 years with the California Highway Patrol and retired as an assistant chief, is reflective and open when he talks about the effect law enforcement jobs have on officers and had on him.

“I’ve done more death notifications than I care to admit,” Barnes said. “And just watching the absolute destruction of a family when you’re standing in the doorway to try and let them know that their loved one is no longer with them.

“So every one was difficult ..., but the real bad ones will stick with me.”

“It takes its toll,” he added. “It really does over a long period of time, and it took its toll on me and it took me time to having to go get some help.”

That came in 2011 when his wife told him he needed to do something.

“She said I needed to get help,” Barnes said. “And I was worried because I thought they would do a ‘fit for duty’ (evaluation).”

Barnes admitted he was worried about the stigma that move might attach to him, that “I thought they were going to remove me from my assignment.”

But he said now he preaches to fellow deputies that if they need help there should be no hesitation.

“I actually share my story with everybody,” he said. “I teach classes about it.”

This story was originally published May 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.