Sacramento police may have to change ‘violent’ protest policies after lawsuit | Opinion
Sacramentans injured by police action during protests in 2020 were in federal court on Monday morning. Their complaint? That poor training and a culture of discrimination were behind the Sacramento Police Department’s attacks on them at demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s tragic killing by a Minneapolis cop.
This took place, lawyers for the injured argued, as Proud Boys, white supremacists and other groups were allowed to hold riotous “Stop The Steal” protests in Sacramento just months later.
Opening statements were heard Monday morning in front of Senior District Judge John Mendez, on the 14th floor of the Robert T. Matsui Federal Courthouse. The view from this floor gave a beautiful panorama of downtown Sacramento, the river and beyond; the perfect setting for a decision that could affect the future of our city and the rights of its people, especially now, as Americans grow understandably fearful over the loss of basic rights.
Meanwhile, the city and police department’s defense boiled down to something like: They didn’t do it. And if they did do it, then the protesters deserved it.
The same group of activists reached a monetary settlement earlier this month in a federal civil rights lawsuit with the City of Sacramento, in which the city agreed to pay the plaintiffs $350,000 in damages.
Testimony continued Wednesday in this second lawsuit that “seeks(s) changes to address the Sacramento Police Department’s discriminatory and violent policies and practices.” The five plaintiffs are seeking to change the department’s “discriminatory and violent policies,” and to limit its use of certain weapons during protests, including batons, bean bag shotguns and tear gas. They are also asking police to adopt a policy that would provide guidelines for “police response to members of the public who exercise their First Amendment rights.”
The first witness called to testify on Monday was community activist Nikki Jones, who reported the cops using several aggressive tactics to push and separate the crowd, including using flashbangs, pepper balls and tear gas. Jones said police kenneled them by inflicting chemical burns and shooting impact munitions, and said officers initiated surveillance and raids at their homes and verbally harassed her and other protestors.
Jones testified that the crowd was given no warning to disperse before police moved in. The city’s lawyers dispute this.
At one point, Jones testified, an officer broke from the line to pull down a woman’s sign so that they had better access to shoot pepper balls and projectiles at the crowd. Jones said she heard screams and calls for a medic, and shortly after, saw a teenage boy lying on the ground, bleeding from his head.
In court on Monday, the city’s lawyers argued any improper actions by the police during the protests were taken by a number of officers who were acting on their own accord — not because of any improper training the Sacramento Police Department had provided them. Therefore, lawyers argued, there are no changes needed to police policies.
“Did each officer follow policy to a T?” asked Sean Richman, a senior deputy city attorney at the City of Sacramento, during his opening statement. “No, and we admit that. (But) misconduct was not related to policy or training.”
The incidents on trial this week occurred almost five years ago, in the spring of 2020. At that time, the Sacramento Police Department was working from a crowd control policy manual that had not been updated since 1998. Some of those policies were eventually updated in late 2021, and again in 2022, in response to new state laws, specifically Assembly Bill 481, which requires law enforcement agencies to obtain approval from local government before buying or using military equipment, and Assembly Bill 48, which bans the use of kinetic energy projectiles and chemical agents by law enforcement agencies.
Richman also argued that the protests in 2020 were of “unprecedented sizes” and that “protests of that magnitude have not occurred since that time.” He told the judge that the plaintiffs “cannot demonstrate a subjective risk if it has not occurred before or since.”
Former Sacramento Police Review Commissioner Keyan Bliss says that statement is inaccurate. Not only were the 2018 protests after Sacramento PD shot and killed Sacramento resident Stephon Clark also large, but Bliss said he believes they were on a scale equal to the protests that occurred in 2020, if not larger.
Richman argued that the plaintiffs “don’t even know who assaulted them” so how can they make the claim that they were assaulted by police?
Bliss said this, too, is an argument made in bad faith. It was well-documented at the time that Sacramento Police Department officers were covering their badges and nameplates during Black Lives Matter protests, and the city’s police review commission noted this exact issue in their 2020 and 2021 recommendations to the city council.
Former City Councilman Allen Warren, who represented District 2 until December 2020, also called for an update to police policy before he left office, to require officers to identify themselves and ensure names and badges were visible. Former City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, of District 4, once showed the council damning evidence of the disparity in Sacramento Police’s response to Black Lives Matter protests and its response to Proud Boys rallies during “Stop The Steal” rallies.
It’s hard to see where the city has done anything to curb such police behavior.
On Wednesday, former Sacramento City Police Chief Daniel Hahn will testify, and we will possibly learn more about police tactics during that time. Personally, I hope we will learn from it whether the officers who failed to follow policy — as the city claims — were ever disciplined.
How this trial is decided should be of interest to every citizen in this city and beyond. It will be a litmus test for police behavior during public protests, and so far, Sacramento Police and the city they report to have done absolutely nothing to earn the public’s trust on this.
Bad faith arguments and false claims by Sacramento Police will only open the door for far more egregious behavior in the future.
More large-scale protests are likely to come our way, as political upheaval ripples across the country. Sacramento will not be spared from protests, peaceful or not. We deserve to know without a doubt that our region’s law enforcement will act within legal — and moral — boundaries when that time comes.
This story was originally published March 26, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
