‘I have to dig deeper’: Takeaways from my weekly talk with Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg chats with me on Facebook Live at 6 p.m. every Wednesday. This week, he talked about the protests that have engulfed the city and the nation, the destruction, the decision to call the National Guard, and the curfew.
We went overtime in our June 3 session as I asked the mayor about the resistance from police agencies even to hear criticism and how he suggests to address that. He offered these observations of self-assessment:
“Am I willing to make anybody mad to do the right thing? I always have been. But I have to work on my own leadership here, too.
“If I’m going to be an even better leader, an even better leader who, as the governor says, ‘meets the moment,’ I’m reflecting a lot on this.
He continued: “I refuse to allow myself to fall into that easy human experience of getting kind of comfortable... And in this area, I have to dig deeper.”
Here are my other five takeaways from my interview with the mayor:
Buck stops with the mayor
Steinberg took the heat for two nights of wild vandalism last Saturday and Sunday nights. Protests were mostly peaceful during those two days to honor George Floyd, the unarmed African American man killed by Minneapolis Police on May 25. But constitutionally protected free speech was hijacked by brazen looting and near anarchy after dark on May 30 and 31.
“In a situation like this, you are criticized from both sides (business owners suffering losses to property and protesters angry about a show of force by law enforcement)...But the buck stops with me.”
Consensus on curfew
Steinberg said the decision not to call for a first curfew in the City of Sacramento on May 31, along with a delay on calling in the National Guard that day, was a shared decision between him, the City Council and Police Chief Daniel Hahn.
“No one was pushing for (a curfew or the National Guard) on Sunday,” he said. “That was based upon the information and recommendations of the experts that yes we had it covered....It was a judgment call.”
Not worried about curfew appearances
Steinberg said he and other leaders did not hold off on a Sunday night curfew because they were worried about how it would look politically in liberal Sacramento.
“I was not worried about appearances,” Steinberg said. “I was trying to listen to the recommendations.”
Cops avoided direct confrontations
Part of the reason that looters ran wild was because city cops have been directed to avoid violent confrontations as some police agencies have done in other cities.
“We do not want police to engage in confrontations that will lead to loss of life,” Steinberg said. The mayor added that police would only engage if they had a large advantage in manpower.
But especially on the evening of May 31, they were overwhelmed by the size of crowds causing trouble.
“Part of the tension, the challenge, is that we are trying to minimize as many direct confrontations as possible,” Steinberg said.
Destruction alarmed leaders
The site of a badly damaged urban core was alarming to city leaders on Monday morning, at which point Steinberg and others approved a curfew and called in the National Guard. They were two terrible days for Sacramento with one noteworthy bright spot amid the broken glass and graffiti, according to Steinberg.
“It was massive destruction that was not acceptable,” Steinberg said. “I defend the police department. They were prepared but we’ve never seen anything like this in Sacramento,” he said “What I say to our business owners is that I am sorry, and were standing with you every step of the way.”
So what was the silver lining?
“We did not suffer a death or a serious injury,” Steinberg said. “None of our vandalized buildings were destroyed.” Other cities can’t say the same. Meanwhile, Bee journalists were not roughed up or arrested in Sacramento like other journalists in other cities
For example: On June 1, former Sacramento Bee photographer Carolyn Cole – now the the Los Angeles Times – wrote a first person account of having pepper spray shot directly into her eyes at close range by the Minnesota State Patrol last week as Cole covered Floyd protests there. Cole suffered damage to her left cornea
My next Facebook Live with Steinberg is 6 p.m. Wednesday June 10. Hopefully my old friend Carolyn Cole will be feeling better by then – and hopefully Sacramento will be peaceful.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 7:19 AM.
