Sacramento County sheriff’s department desperately needs change. Jim Cooper can bring it

It seems like a lifetime since Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones was endorsed by The Bee’s Editorial Board ahead of the bruising 2010 election in which voters narrowly chose Jones to run the county’s largest law enforcement agency.

Jones’ opponent 12 years ago was Jim Cooper, a sheriff’s captain. Now a state assemblyman, Cooper is running for sheriff again against a Jones protege, Undersheriff Jim Barnes.

To quote the Grateful Dead: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Jones, a Republican now making his second run for Congress, is unrecognizable today as the sensible lawman who won The Bee’s endorsement over Cooper, a Democrat. He has become a right-wing ideologue.

Jones used his position and platform to spout conservative talking points, pander to former President Donald Trump, fight any semblance of oversight, and participate in irresponsible superspreader events at the height of the COVID pandemic. His department has been sued repeatedly for the inhumane treatment of inmates. He locked the county’s inspector general out of his buildings when his officers’ use of lethal force was questioned. And so on.

The result is a department badly in need of a reset. And of the two candidates running, Cooper is in a stronger position to bring change.

The first mayor of Elk Grove, Cooper was on hand as that city took its first steps toward becoming the vibrant community it is today. Combined with his years in the state Legislature, that experience gives Cooper an edge over Barnes as someone who knows how to work outside the closed culture that Jones created within the department. He has the support of a majority of the Board of Supervisors as well as District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert.

In a debate hosted by The Bee’s Editorial Board last month, the assemblyman rightly noted that the department’s downtown jail needs to be a “better neighbor.” Currently, prisoners released from county jails are turned loose in downtown Sacramento no matter where they were arrested. This has made the downtown core less safe, and Cooper said he would look at changing the policy.

Granted, Cooper and Barnes, both of whom rose through the ranks to command positions, have plenty in common. During the debate, both backed the broad issuance of concealed-carry gun permits to “law-abiding” citizens. Both supported enhanced training for the more than 1,500 men and women who serve in the department. And both pledged to be responsive, collaborative sheriffs.

Even though Barnes is, as Cooper said, “Jones’ hand-picked successor,” it wouldn’t be fair to blame Jones’ record on Barnes. Liked and respected in law enforcement circles, he is less strident and more humble than the sheriff.

Barnes might be an improvement over Jones, but the undersheriff hasn’t spelled out a different direction for the department.

Barnes didn’t have a good answer, for instance, when asked about the department’s release of Troy Davis, a convicted felon suspected in the September murder of Kate Tibbitts in her Land Park home. A Sacramento Superior Court source told The Bee that Davis could have been held, but Barnes said there “was a lot going on” at the jail and that, with COVID protocols mandating the release of scores and prisoners, proper vetting “was not done.” He said the department is doing better now in cooperation with the district attorney.

One could imagine that Tibbitts’ family would take no comfort from that answer.

The crime underscored the need for more training and oversight in the department. Sheriff’s deputies and the community they serve need a leader, not a political lightning rod.

We have some misgivings about Cooper, who has undercut needed police reforms in the Assembly. For the sake of a department and a community that needs a sheriff, not a strongman, we hope he represents a departure.

This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM.