Facing a tough budget, why is Sacramento Sheriff Jones immune to ‘defunding the police’?
Few seem to notice the obvious gigantic irony playing out in our midst. While the public clamors for police to be “defunded,” the local law enforcement agency that needs the most oversight, and gets almost none, is poised for another large budget allocation Tuesday.
It’s the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
The county’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2020-21 was scheduled to be approved Tuesday, as a matter of fact. Instead, officials OK’d a placeholder budget to last through the summer. The budget will get readjusted again in a few months when the county determines how badly COVID-19 has drained local revenues.
But the picture could be ugly no matter what.
In taxpayer dollars, the Sheriff’s Office is scheduled to be funded to the tune of nearly $277 million — by far the biggest piece of the county’s $4.2 billion budget. How big is that in terms more people can understand?
The county spends more of what it considers “net county cost dollars” — such as those taxes you pay on your property or every time you purchase taxable goods — on the Sheriff’s Office than on its entire social services budget. What’s in the social services budget? Child, family and adult services, probation, the public defender, human assistance, child support services, the county coroner, in-home supportive services and more.
Put another way, the sheriff’s budget is 105 percent of what the county collects from you and spends on social services. Put yet another way, despite the decline of the American River Parkway in recent years because of fires caused by illegal campers, pollution in river waters and needles discarded by intravenous drug users, the sheriff’s budget is nearly 30 times the net county cost for regional parks in Sacramento County.
Add lawsuits to the cost
That’s not even counting the number of enormous lawsuits filed against Sheriff Scott Jones’ department that the county has had to settle over the years. The Sacramento Bee estimates the county has paid more than $16 million in excessive force damages linked to Jones’ department in the last decade. That includes a $7 million wrongful death suit paid to the Citrus Heights widow of an emotionally disturbed man shot to death by a deputy.
I read the court depositions in the Chad Irwin case and found that the deputy who shot him had not received the gold standard training given to officers for dealing with mentally ill people.
The county also had to pay $27 million in a personal injury case that became the largest civil suit in county history.
But there is more, so much more.
In the most recent protests of George Floyd’s death, the Sheriff’s Office – and not city cops – shot rubber bullets that struck a Sacramento teenager in the face, breaking his jaw.
During the 2018 demonstrations following the shooting death of Stephon Clark by city cops, a sheriff’s deputy – and not a city cop – hit a demonstrator with his SUV.
An exclusive report by The Bee’s Sam Stanton and Molly Sullivan last December, found that excessive force and abuse by deputies at the jail was known but not discouraged by Jones’ department. Stanton and Sullivan reported that two deputies were recommended for termination but Jones rejected that in favor of suspensions.
Last week, Stanton reported that two federal lawsuits have been filed against the county, “alleging that mentally ill inmates were beaten to death by fellow prisoners because jail officials failed to protect the victims by placing them in areas where they could have avoided harm.”
And who could forget how Jones allowed the county jail to be the staging ground for an exploitative Netflix series “Jailbirds” Or how the county had to pay $100 million to settle a lawsuit citing “inhumane” conditions at the jail?
Honestly? I could keep going here — and going and going. How about when a Sacramento County Superior Court Judge ordered the county to pay $63,000 in legal fees to The Bee because Jones refused to turn over documents to The Bee as mandated by state law?
Sheriff’s budget has herd immunity
So why is Jones’ budget far more immune from the political forces pressuring the nearby Sacramento Police Department right now?
On Monday, for example, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg announced a host of proposals to increase oversight on city cops in response to the civic uprisings in Sacramento and beyond since Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police on May 25.
Why? The county of Sacramento and the city of Sacramento are two completely different governments. In the city of roughly 500,000, Police Chief Daniel Hahn reports to City Manager Howard Chan and Chan reports to the nine members of the City Council.
But in the county of Sacramento, with a population of more than 1.5 million including the city, nearby cities, and the unincorporated county, Jones is a duly elected official.
What many people don’t understand is that the county and the city and Hahn and Jones are worlds apart politically. Sacramento Board of Supervisors Chairman Phil Serna has told me that he has received many letters and emails from citizens upbraiding him for issues related to Sacramento Police. He has no authority over them other than his bully pulpit. which he is known for using.
And he has little authority over Jones, according to the county charter.
The only chance the five elected members of the Board of Supervisors have to exert influence over Jones and his department is at budget time — right now.
Yet with the exception of Serna, who voted “no” on Jones’ budget last year, and who intends to continue dissenting on the sheriff’s “status quo rollover budget” today, the most critical exercise in Sacramento County amounts to little more than a rubber stamp for Jones.
Two county supervisors — Sue Frost and Susan Peters — are very close to Jones and have received political contributions from local law enforcement unions.
So besides Serna, why don’t the other two Democrats on the board follow his lead and do more to rein in Jones’ budget? Why don’t Patrick Kennedy and Don Nottoli openly challenge Jones over costing Sacramento County taxpayers millions?
Unfortunately, Kennedy and Nottoli have had lockjaw when the moment has called for them to say in bold terms to Jones that enough is enough. They pretty much go along with Jones, leaving Serna in the lonely position of being the only supervisor not only to question Jones’ budget, but to forgo the support of disgruntled and powerful law enforcement unions.
Well, Serna is trying. But one vote is not going to get anything done.
This was evident in 2018. Jones barred the former county inspector general — former Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel – from entering his buildings. This was after Braziel, in his capacity of providing review on fatal shootings, questioned whether Jones’ deputies needed to use lethal force on Mikel McIntyre, an African American man.
By the end of the year, public interest had filled the supervisors’ chambers with activists demanding that Jones not be allowed to get away with shirking a simple review of his department. An overflow crowd of activists rebuked Jones at the supervisors meeting in December. It was an inspiring show of community pressure.
But what happened? Nothing. Kennedy became the chair of the supervisors board in 2019 and the issue of what to do about the IG position languished while community pressure dissipated. Again, with the exception of Serna, the others just kind of moved on. Jones did get away with locking out Braziel.
So now here we are, with national and local demands for police reform, and Jones is poised to get whatever he wants. Only Serna will dissent. He will not receive the kind of review necessary, especially given his track record in nearly 10 years as sheriff.
“It would be so much healthier for our community if the sheriff understood the political will on the board was no longer interested in casually affirming his budget request each June,” Serna said.
Because of the size and nature of Jones’ budget, Serna said the board and county executive are often presented a “Sophie’s Choice” — reduce the sheriff’s budget but expect more crime.
“What’s most troubling is that it becomes challenging to even propose enhancing successful programs we know are important to the community because of hundreds of millions spent on one department, every single year,” Serna said.
Where else could the money go?
The county has many such programs, but one that stands out is aimed at reducing African American childhood deaths. The Black Child Legacy Campaign was an initiative Serna established in 2011 to address decades-long child death disparities in the county’s African American population.
Through various pots of money, the Black Child Legacy Campaign helped decrease African American child deaths in the county by 45 percent between 2013 and 2016, Serna said.
To increase civic participation, Serna had hoped that some county meetings could be moved to evening sessions instead of daytime sessions when more people are working. That proposal was shot down by Frost, Peters and Kennedy.
And now, in the midst of a pandemic, citizens are unable to register verbal comments at remotely held meetings in real time. They can only offer comments in writing.
On Monday, Serna alerted the county CEO, Nav Gil, that he was going to boycott future supervisors meetings unless the public is given a voice, either by adjusting social distancing requirements in chambers or providing a means for people to call in by phone to participate in board meetings.
Until or unless that happens, the talk of “defunding” remains a joke in Sacramento County, where a rogue sheriff gets to do whatever he wants.
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
