How can a Sacramento police review commission have cops and cop relatives on it? Opinion
Sacramento’s new mayor is attempting to quietly change the nature of the independent Community Police Review Commission by eliminating a rule that prohibits current or former cops from serving. But how independent can the commission truly be if its commissioners are cops, former cops and the relatives of cops?
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty is not only proposing to bypass rules stating that no current or former peace officers may be members of the commission, but that up to two former peace officers may be on the board, provided they have not served as officers in the last five years, “in order to engage diverse voices on the commission,” states the proposal.
McCarty had placed this item on the council consent calendar, which is typically reserved for mundane items approved with discussion — not something as important as a fundamental change to the city’s police commission. Current commission members and some members of the city council were caught by surprise, and by late Monday McCarty said he would placing the item on the council agenda for a full discussion,
The question this now raises is: Does the Sacramento Police Department believe in honest discussions about their policing methods? Apparently not.
The police’s open distaste for former police review commission chair Keyan Bliss served as a convenient excuse for them to stop attending commission meetings last year in protest, despite direction from city hall that they attend.
Bliss had been appointed to the board in 2021 by former city councilmember Katie Valenzuela from District 4 who was ousted by Phil Pluckebaum last March. After Pluckebaum took office in December, Bliss was immediately replaced on the commission by a new appointee from District 4: Karen Korbs.
Korbs is the mother of Sacramento Police Officer Samuel Korbs, currently serving in the department as a patrol officer.
Korbs and her husband, Brian, (who is himself a former U.S. Secret Service agent) are a self-described “law enforcement family,” SPD Officer Korbs said in a 2023 video interview seen on the Sacramento Police Department’s Facebook page.
The Korbs family also hosted a campaign fundraiser for Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho while he was running for office, and told UC Davis Magazine at Ho’s swearing-in at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria in 2023 that they supported Ho “because he wasn’t ‘soft on crime.’”
Councilmember Pluckebaum said that he appointed Korbs because she had “a strong understanding of the issues around policing and the community” and in “no small part because her son is a police officer.”
When asked what her qualifications were for the role, Pluckebaum said he’d have to refer to Korbs’ application for details, but he knew she’d “gone on some ridealongs.”
Sacramento Police want friendly commissioners
It’s all too clear what’s going on here: The Sacramento Police Department, with the help of their supporters in City Hall, wants to stack the commission with pro-police voices.
The commission is the public’s voice against excesses and abuses by the police department, and they are blatantly trying to give its power to commissioners who won’t question police behavior.
There is already a significant power imbalance at Sacramento City Hall, where the city is facing budget cuts, but the police budget is a record high $228 million. Council members are supposed to provide dispassionate civilian oversight of police, but that’s hard to do when council members take thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Sacramento Police Officers Association.
God forbid we have even one city commission that doesn’t immediately kowtow to the Sacramento Police Department.
McCarty helps the police, not the public
Mayor McCarty wants to frame this proposal as “a fair and balanced change to how we structure our Community Police Review” and that “including former law enforcement officers to the committee aligns Sacramento with other cities that already benefit from this additional perspective.”
But that’s simply not true, and: We already tried it.
“There was a strong community demand that we have a civilian-led police oversight body that actually had teeth with subpoena power and investigative power to look into misconduct complaints that were being ignored or overlooked by the previous administration of the Office of Public Safety and Accountability,” Bliss said.
“The city council at the time responded by amending the city code to require that no former or current police officers could serve on the commission, but they didn’t give it any teeth, which is why, since its latest iteration (in 2018), there have been over 170 recommendations that have been approved by the commission and only one of them has ever received a vote by council,” Bill said — that was the 2021 update to the Sacramento Police Department’s Use of Force policy.
Moving again to place former law enforcement on the police review commission will water down the only civilian-led police oversight commission in the city of Sacramento and create further opportunities for corruption. To do so in the name of “diversity” is an insult to the diverse communities that have suffered from a lack of SPD oversight.
A Police Review Commission, at its best, should promote public confidence in the professionalism and accountability of the police department. If the Sacramento Police Department has nothing to hide, then they should welcome the chance to prove that — publicly. But stacking the police review board with commissioners who are friendly to law enforcement is like leaving the foxes in charge of the hen house.
It looks like McCarty is doing a favor for an influential endorsement he got last fall from the Sacramento Police Officer’s Association in a mayor’s race where he barely won over challenger Flo Cofer. It’s a bad look for him, right off the bat and putting cops on a commission that needs to be independent is a bad look for Sacramento.
The council should reject it. Sacramento deserves a truly independent commission.
This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
