Who elected Sacramento DA Thien Ho to be the dictator of homeless enforcement? | Opinion
Thien Ho was a legal giant when he was elected to be Sacramento’s new district attorney last year. He was an elite prosecutor who secured the conviction of the infamous Golden State Killer, among other high-profile suspects.
One of the questions The Bee Editorial Board had about Ho when he was a candidate for DA was whether he could transition from ruthless prosecutor attacking his targets to statesman district attorney leading an office that’s supposed to be about justice.
The answer to that question is no, apparently.
In recent weeks, Ho has used his office to threaten the city of Sacramento to police homelessness as he believes they should, or else. Ho is selectively targeting Mayor Darrell Steinberg and other elected city leaders for failing to enforce city code violations.
On an emotional level, Ho’s message resonates. Citizens are fed up with sidewalk campers, mentally ill people, hypodermic needles, aggressive panhandlers, trash, human waste and all of the other negative impacts suffered most acutely within the urban core of the capital of California.
But what justice is there in prosecuting elected city leaders for being overwhelmed by a homeless crisis proliferating in cities far beyond Sacramento?
This is a question all citizens should be asking our DA right now.
Ho was elected to prosecute criminals. He was not elected to threaten other elected leaders because he doesn’t like how they are dealing with homelessness.
Ho is going after Steinberg and elected city council members who have been trying to avoid policy decisions that Ho is demanding they implement. He wants them to hand out citations to homeless people who violate anti-camping ordinances and who block city streets with their tents or bodies.
Last week, Ho was incredulous to learn that the city had not issued any citations to homeless people for violating a year-old ordinance banning homeless camps on sidewalks, the American River and beyond.
In an interview with The Bee, Ho asked: “Is there a concerted effort by the mayor and by City Hall to stop law enforcement from enforcing the law?”
City leaders said they directed staff and Sacramento police to avoid handing out citations because they want to avoid fining and jailing homeless people.
“Over the past year, the city has been enforcing its sidewalk ordinance, responding to more than 4,500 calls for service regarding blocked sidewalks and building entrances,” Sacramento City Spokesman Tim Swanson wrote in an email last week. “This work has been conducted in accordance with the city council directive to avoid fining or booking people in jail who are cited and to prioritize outreach.”
Ho thinks he speaks for voters
People can reasonably disagree with the city’s strategy, but the strategy was formulated by a duly elected body of people empowered by the voters of Sacramento. And it’s up to Sacramento voters to decide if they disagree with their leaders on how they are policing the homeless.
Ho has taken it upon himself to speak for the people. Part of his rationale is based on a survey compiled by his office of citizen complaints, of which there were more than 1,600 respondents. Yet the city has more than a half million people, and the county has more than 1.5 million.
“The people have spoken,” Ho said in a press release that mentioned the survey results.
No sir, they actually haven’t.
What Ho doesn’t seem to appreciate is that Sacramento is in the shape it’s in now because the anger that makes his message so popular is the same anger that’s shot down numerous proposals to build shelter capacity for the homeless within the city limits by established encampments in certain council districts. Nobody wants homeless encampments near them, but nobody can come up with a better idea to house homeless people quickly so that they can be moved off city streets.
There is also currently a federal court order barring the city from clearing homeless encampments during summer heat waves. Ironically, the city violated that court order twice in recent days by clearing homeless people from beneath a City Hall overhang. Judge Troy L. Nunley of the U.S. District Court for Eastern California issued the ruling that forbids the city from clearing homeless tent encampments on public property until at least September 1. Nunley left wiggle room in his order to keep city sidewalks clear but he added that “to the extent possible, unhoused individuals should be given an opportunity to comply with the sidewalk ordinance at their given location.”
Despite this order, Ho sent a long letter to the city on Aug. 7 demanding — among other things — the clearing of 16 encampments within the city limits in 30 days. Ho wants the city to make sure that the unhoused individuals removed from the clearing cannot migrate to another area within three blocks of the encampments.
Doesn’t the city have to wait until September 2 to clear these encampments so as not to violate Nunley’s order again? What if Nunley extends his order beyond September 1? Would such an order leave the city of Sacramento to choose between obeying a federal judge or the Sacramento DA?
Ho is fed up with homeless campers pitching tents a block from his G Street office. He’s fed up with his employees feeling threatened as they walk to work. I get it, we all get it. Ho is not wrong in feeling frustrated. But his actions are not creating more shelter capacity, drug treatment opportunities, mental health beds or drug counseling.
Instead, Ho is doing what he did as an elite prosecutor: He’s making threats. He’s targeting the city’s elected leaders as he would crime suspects.
The same impulses that elevated Ho to the pinnacle of his old job have led him to a legal and political no man’s land that only gets weirder if he actually prosecutes Steinberg and his colleagues for exercising the authority that voters gave them.
This story was originally published August 17, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
