sacramento police

Chaos Reigns in Sacramento

Matt15 Comments

On Sunday March 18, 2018, two Sacramento Police officers shot and killed a man.  The young man, Stephon Clark, was a 22 (or 23 depending on the source) year old black man, who was not armed.  To listen to Black Lives Matter or the deceased man’s family, you would think he was a fine upstanding young man, a pillar of society, who was seated in his backyard praying when two racist cops burst into the yard and shot him without an ounce of provocation.  Some news outlets referred to him as a “stay at home dad” and talked about how he was a “loving father who was turning his life around.”  To say the headlines were incendiary is an understatement.

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Despite what Black Lives Matter, the mainstream media and many of the ‘protesters’ would have you believe, Clark was not an innocent young man who played no role in his own demise.  He was a multiple time convicted felon, with priors for robbery, drugs, domestic violence, human trafficking, and illegal possession of a gun.  He was indeed the father of two kids, whom he did not have custody of.  He was staying with his grandmother crashing at his grandmother’s from time to time after his most recent release from jail approximately one month before he was killed.

Even the ultra-liberal Sacramento Bee was forced to admit that Clark was not the angel that protesters are portraying when they said the following.  Bear in mind, these are only charges that were filed against him since he turned 18, which is just four (4) short years.

“A search of Sacramento Superior Court records found four related cases for a Stephan Alonzo Clark. The most recent were two felony counts of domestic abuse, to which Clark – who preferred to go by the name Stephon – pleaded guilty and agreed to complete a treatment program. The court record also shows a 2008 robbery charge, and charges in 2013 for possession of a firearm and possession of a controlled substance.”

On the night that Clark was killed, he was seen breaking into parked cars by a neighbor who called 911.  Sacramento Police units responded, as did the Sacramento Sheriff’s helicopter.  Upon locating him, the helicopter observed him breaking into a home by smashing out a rear window to the home.  After doing that, he fled on foot, jumped a fence into the backyard of another home, where he began walking toward the street.  About half way to the street, he was contacted by a Sacramento Police officer who told him to stop and show his hands.  Clark instead turned and ran back into the backyard of the home.  The original officer and one other chased him into the backyard and as they rounded the corner, they saw Clark across the yard reportedly pointing something at them.  The officers thought is was a gun, as is evidenced both by they shouting “gun” on the body camera video, but also based on their actions as viewed from the helicopter FLIR footage.  Seconds later, as Clark moved toward the officers, they opened fire shooting him.  He died from his wounds.  No gun was found on him, but a cell phone was.  They determined he was apparently holding the cellphone which the officers mistook for a gun.

Since that shooting happened, there have been ‘protests’ nearly every day in downtown Sacramento.  At one point, ‘protesters’ marched onto northbound Interstate 5 and stopped traffic.  They climbed onto vehicle and vandalized CHP cars that responded.  Twice in the same week, they surrounded the Golden One Center, where the Sacramento Kings play, and prevented attendees from entering the arena for a game.  After the first incident, the Kings even made a public statement in which they espoused solidarity with the protesters, even wearing warm up jerseys with Clark’s name on them, but that did not dissuade the ‘protesters’ from shutting down another game the next day.

However, before those ‘protesters’ marched to the Golden One Center, they first overran an open to the public Sacramento City Council meeting where they acted like complete buffoons, with Stevante Clark (the dead guy’s brother) strutting around and jumping up onto the dais, getting right into the pandering Mayor Steinberg’s face and screaming at him.  He continued by fronting off the Chief of Police and declaring that Steinberg is no longer the mayor.  It was a total sh!t show, and luckily for us, CBS 13 was good enough to put the complete, unedited video of it on their YouTube channel.

Finally, after nearly six (6) minutes of total loss of control, Steinberg announced a 15 minute recess, that way he would not be present when the cops cleared out the rabble.  After all, forcing people who cannot follow the rules out of the building would not be very inclusive of him…

Later, the group of protesters that were forced from City Hall marched down the street where they proceeded to shut down the Kings game as I previously mentioned.  The open public city council meeting resumed and, while most of the speakers I saw appeared to be educated and well spoken, many of their comments seemed only partially if at all related to the topic that they were supposedly there to discuss.  As the night continued, the speakers became more and more unhinged, and eventually the whole thing was shut down more than two hours early as police made an arrest or two and had to forcefully remove others.  Steinberg’s hands off, open dialogue policy is not remotely working, just like hands off policies never do.

At one point during the multiple hours long open public council meeting, one of the people speaking asked the audience to pull out their cell phones and point them at the mayor.  One of the ‘protesters’ in attendance obliged and was captured on camera doing so.  Now, I would like to personally thank this man for proving a point that many people have tried to make, that given the proper pose, as exemplified by this man, in the dark of night while chasing a man who was seen breaking into cars and a house, you round a corner and see something similar to this, it can be quite easy to mistake a man pointing a cell phone at you as someone pointing a gun at you.

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Black Lives Matter Sacramento has promised that their protest’s will continue at least through Clark’s funeral, which now boasts the Reverend race baiter extraordinaire Al Sharpton as the guest speaker who will provide the eulogy.

While it has been largely under/unreported by the media, these ‘protests’ have not been as peaceful as some would have you believe.  While they have by no means devolved into what happened in Ferguson or Baltimore, there have been numerous violent felonies committed.  ‘Protesters’ violently attacked a counter protester (cop supporter) outside of the Golden One center.  ‘Protesters’ surrounded multiple different police vehicles as they left the Sacramento jail, which happens to be located in downtown Sacramento.  In fact, an officer from an outside agency reportedly called for Code 3 cover as they got surrounded while trying to leave.  ‘Protesters’ attacked a woman who was driving down the street because she did not want to stop for their ‘protest,’ and in my opinion, she was well within her rights as those ‘protesters’ are breaking multiple laws when they flood the street and prevent people from freely travelling where they so choose.

In fact, I would argue that legally speaking, those protesters are committing a false imprisonment of every single motorist they have trapped.  The police should be arresting every one of those fools, but instead they are treating them with kid gloves.

If you want to protest, I fully support your right to do so, but your rights do not trump those of people who are completely uninvolved in the matter.  You do not get to commit crimes just because you are angry.  Letting these ‘protesters’ continue to act like this reminds me of parents of that spoiled rotten kid who is flopping around on the floor having a temper tantrum while the parents offer them bribes to stop acting like that.  What that spoiled brat needs is a smack on the ass, and that is what these ‘protesters’ need also.  Law and order applies to all people equally and cares not about skin color.  It is time the people in charge in Sacramento start enforcing the law instead of making excuses for a group of law breakers just because of their skin color.

Oh yeah, by the way, those two racist cops who shot the poor innocent church going choir boy I mentioned at the start of this, one of them just happens to be black…  Maybe, just maybe, this shooting had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the dead guy being a criminal doing stupid criminal things.

And just in case no one is aware, there are actually guns disguised to look just like a cell phone.  In fact, the department I work for has sent out officer safety bulletins describing them and included pictures of them, just like the picture of the .380ACP cell phone gun below.

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If you were previously unaware of the cell phone gun, take 45 seconds and watch this clip (starts at 4:44 mark just in case the link doesn’t work properly).  The guys in this video is pretty much foresaw exactly what happened in this situation.

For those who have not seen the video of the shooting, I include the raw footage of the incident from both officer’s body cameras and the helicopter’s FLIR footage in the following video where I breakdown the shooting.

Disaster at Sac PD; Digging Deeper

MattNo Comments

Capture

Since I wrote my original piece on the situation over at the Sacramento Police Department, more information has made its way to me.  The good part about being in my position (a working cop) is that most of the people in my line of work know they can trust me, so I get some info that would never make its way to the “news” because no cop in their right mind would trust the mainstream media to do the right thing with that info.

Infighting for Chief of Police Position
Ever since the anti-cop Mayor Darrel Steinberg won the election, upper management at the Sacramento Police Department has been in an upheaval.  Steinberg, who incidentally is a complete moron when it comes to anything public safety related, like most liberal mayors, wants a yes man in the position of Chief of Police.  Steinberg and the mostly leftist city council have been initiating drastic changes that affect how Sac PD operates, and every single change has been based on the loud cries of the very vocal minority (whining anti-cop snowflakes).  One of those most recent changes involved the releasing of video from officer involved shootings.  The interim chief, Brian Louie, recently crossed the mayor and city council when he did not release video from an officer involved shooting as quickly as the city leaders wanted (because to them people’s feelings are more important than a police investigation).  That incident essentially ensured that Louie will not be the next chief, and it is my understanding he was told as much.  That is all old news to me, but what follows is new.

So, now that the Chief of Police position is again up for grabs, there appears to be a power struggle going on.  When this whole “Police Officer Beats Up Pedestrian” situation hit the news, Louie, the interim chief was out of town on vacation, so it was left to the deputy chiefs who are fighting over the vacant chief spot, and what better way to suck up to the criminal placating, cop hating city management than to throw a good cop to the wolves?  As an extra bonus, the cop in question is a white male and the “victim” (suspect) of the contact is a POC (person of color), even better since he is a young black male who claims (lies) to the media that he was totally innocent.  With that playbook in hand, one of the deputy chiefs stepped forward and publicly went to bat against his own people.  At this point, I’ve received no confirmation on who made that call, but I did hear that Deputy Chief Bray was one of the management folks hitting roll calls and giving the middle finger (figuratively) to all of the working cops.

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A Good Man Betrayed
So much for the internal battles at the heart of this public sacrificing of a cop, it is time to talk about man himself.  I do not know him personally, but from what I hear from people who know him and work with him, he is someone I would be proud to work alongside.

While his law enforcement career is still in its infancy, his service to this country and the public in general is not.  He is a Marine Corps veteran who served two stints.  After his full time military service ended, he began his career as a cop.  While he has only been off probation for a short time, I’m told he has earned the trust of the senior officers on his patrol team.  He has a reputation as a hard worker who is both reliable and willing to help his coworkers.

And it is not just his coworkers that he is known for helping.  Not too long ago, there was a gang shooting at a park in his district.  Injured in that shooting were a couple of innocent children.  This officer was not only one of the first on scene at that shooting, but he and one other officer, who both just took a tactical life saving class worked on an 11 year old boy who had been shot in the chest, saving that boy’s life.  Not that this officer cared what that little boy’s skin color was, but seeing as the local media is making this incident to be about race, the boy he saved just so happened to be black.

Of course, you will not hear his department or the media talking about his heroic actions because they are both too busy either attacking him or very publicly abandoning him.

The Kicker
Yet another thing that you will not see the Sacramento Police management, or official department representatives talking about, is that this officer and all of his coworkers have recently been instructed to step up their pedestrian contacts in the very area where this jaywalking stop occurred.  Why were they instructed to do so you might ask?

Do you remember that gang shooting I mentioned above, the one where this officer saved a young boy’s life, BECAUSE OF THAT SHOOTING, that’s why.    Many of the members of the gangs involved in that incident are from the area and often travel on foot.  And no, I am not making this up.  This is one of those times where real life seems stranger than fiction.  During roll calls in the days leading up to this stop, supervisors have been instructing the patrol cops in that area to increase their pedestrian contacts.  Being the conscientious employee that this officer is, he did what he was instructed to do, likely never expecting doing so would turn him into the sacrificial lamb of some politically minded asshole deputy chief who was going to use this officer as a stepping stone to the position of Chief.  While any working cop knows this is not the type of guy you want at the helm of your department, I can pretty much guarantee this is exactly the type of guy Steinberg and the city council do want.  As I stated before, this event and the fallout from it are going to drastically reduce Sac PD’s ability to hire and retain cops.

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee (not surprisingly) is happy about how this situation is unfolding.  While they acknowledge that the rank and file cops at Sac PD are “disgruntled” (a large understatement), they say this is how situations like this should be handled.

Sacramento PD: How NOT to Run A Police Department

MattNo Comments

This article is cross posted here and at Full30.

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Sac PD Management Cements Their Role As A Horrible Example of How To Run a Police Department

The Sacramento Police Department has been in the national news the last couple days.  In less than five (5) days, the management at the Sacramento Police Department has demonstrated, to anyone watching, a perfect example of how NOT to run a police department.  And from what I am hearing through the grapevine, last night their upper management doubled down on that.

Monday 4-11-17
But first, some history for those living under a rock.  On Monday at about 5:30 PM, a Sac PD officer stopped a pedestrian for jaywalking.  While several people have argued the basis for the stop, there are many codes, both state and local city ordinances, that can be used to justify the stop.  During the encounter, the suspect refused to comply, stepped into the street, shed his jacket and, quite clearly (via the officer’s dash cam video) challenged the officer to a fight.  The officer took the suspect down to the ground where the two exchanged a few blows, and the suspect was taken into custody.

Present during the fight, but not for the initial contact, was a friend of the suspect who filmed the encounter and then posted the video to Facebook.  Local news station Fox40 ran with the cell phone video like it was gospel, and began generating and stoking mass public outrage.

Tuesday 4-12-17
In world record time, by about noon the next morning, Sacramento PD had thrown the officer involved to the wolves.  Not only did they publicly state that he demonstrated “unacceptable conduct,” but they also stated that they had placed the officer on administrative leave, started an internal investigation, and were considering filing criminal charges against the officer.  WOW!!!  That was really quick, his actions must have been so ridiculously over the line that it required such a swift, firm stance, right?  Yeah, not so much.

Sac PD also released dash cam video from several cars on the scene, including the primary officer’s car.

Fox40 also interviewed the suspect in this case.  The suspect made numerous, blatant lies in his statement, and despite the fact that those lies were plain as day to anyone who watched the dash cam video, Fox40 decided to air the lies as if they were truth.

Wednesday 4-13-17
By Wednesday, this incident had hit the national stage and the officer’s actions were being called into question by just about everyone, except for those of us who looked at ALL of the evidence, including the suspect’s actions and words.  Wednesday, I filmed a video in which I analyzed the situation and compared the information that was available.  In my opinion, the officer did nothing wrong, and the actions by the management were absolutely disgraceful!

(Some mild cursing contained in this video)

Shortly after filming that video, two more bits of information regarding the suspect came to light.  The information that came out helps explain his noncompliance and his hostility toward the officer.  First, he had an active warrant for his arrest from another jurisdiction.  This might explain why he refused to comply; he didn’t want to go to jail.  Second, he has a history of fighting with the cops, and had previously been arrested in Fresno, CA for the same thing.

Now, some folks in the comments of my video analyzing this incident pointed out to me that from the video, it appeared that the suspect did not actually jaywalk, and folks said that the suspect used an “unmarked crosswalk.”  I’ll be completely honest here; I do not know diddly about jaywalking laws.  I never worked traffic and I do not recall ever in my career stopping someone for jaywalking.  Since I was not fully informed on the laws, I dug into them, and boy there are quite a few.  (You can see the list of applicable CA laws here: http://www.legal-news-california.tozerlaw.com/jaywalking_laws_california.html)

For those unable or unwilling to watch my video, the following are a few points that I raised in my video.

While, at least from what we can see in the video, it does appear that the suspect crossed the street using an “unmarked crosswalk” as defined by CA law, he did not appear to allow traffic sufficient time to stop and just stepped out into the roadway, a violation of VC  21950(b).  Additionally, a cop from the Sacramento area sent me a message informing me about a couple of applicable Sacrament City Codes, namely SCC 10.20.20 and SCC 10.20.50.  Those can be found here, and they address standing in the roadway interfering with traffic and crossing the street within 300 feet of a marked crosswalk, both of which could be applied to this situation.  Now, you can argue against the need for jaywalking laws all day long, but the fact is they exist, and the suspect was in violation of those laws.  The probable cause for the stop on the suspect is legit.  He had a valid reason to stop him.

Next issue is the use of force, and whether or not it was justified.  First of all, the suspect did not have the right to ignore the officer.  We know, based on the fact that the suspect raised his hands, that he could hear the officer’s commands, and we can see based on his actions that he was refusing to comply.  The officer continues to follow the suspect giving him verbal commands to comply.  Eventually, the suspect stops, takes off his jacket, and challenges the officer to fight.  Thus far, the suspect has committed two crimes (PC 148 and PC 415), in addition to the “jaywalking. “  The officer grabs the suspect by the shoulder (NOT the neck) and takes him to the ground where punches are exchanged, the cop wins the fight, and the suspect is arrested without any major injuries.

Photo taken from related article at BlueLivesMatter.com
Photo taken from related article at BlueLivesMatter.com

I spoke to a number of people who work for the Sacramento Police Department, and the scuttlebutt around their department is that a HUGE number of people just consciously made the decision to seek employment with other agencies, even senior employees.  I’ve written in the past about the problems Sacramento PD has been facing with both hiring and retaining current employees, but this situation, and the way the department is handling it, just greatly exacerbated that problem.

Thursday Night, 4-13-17
This morning, I again spoke to a few people I know who work for Sacramento PD, because I was trying to verify a rumor I had heard.  They had not heard the rumor I asked about, but they did have something new to tell me.  Apparently, Sac PD upper management, as in Deputy Chiefs and others, showed up at roll calls at the various stations to speak to the working cops.  Apparently, from what I am told, the chiefs and other management were very aloof about the whole situation, saying that they stood by how they handled it, and that is just the way it is, and the way it will be.

Needless to say, that crappy “tough shit” attitude displayed by their bosses was not well received by the men and women who should be able to count on management to have their backs.  Instead, management told them to expect to be thrown under the bus.  The way Sac PD management has handled this not only has assured their personnel problems are going to get vastly worse, but they have also demonstrated to ALL of the cops who work there that proactive police work will only get you in trouble.  Expect proactive cop work to cease, and expect the safety of city residents to be vastly lessened.  Odd, you’d think the idiots in charge over there might have heard of that whole “Ferguson Effect,” but apparently not.

I find it EXTREMELY ironic that a department that is constantly telling their officers to be kinder and gentler to the criminals they contact, those very managers cannot even reciprocate that same sentiment toward the people who are supposedly on the same team as them.  Sacramento PD management has just driven that final nail in the coffin.  If you happen to work in the backgrounds department of any neighboring agencies, I would expect to see a huge influx of lateral applicants as everyone bails from Sac PD’s rapidly sinking ship.

DA Says Cops Were Justified – Mayor is a Bloviating Ass!

MattNo Comments

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Several months ago, on July 11, 2016, the Sacramento Police Department was called to a neighborhood by multiple 911 callers regarding a crazy guy running around threatening people with a weapon.  Some callers said he had a knife, and at least one thought he had a gun.  Officers arrived and engaged the man, who continued acting crazy, brandished a knife at the officers and threatened them.  This went on for a while, during which the subject charged at officers and innocent bystanders several times.  The subject would not cooperate, would not drop the knife, would not stop running around, thereby not only putting the officers in danger, but also the general, unsuspecting public in the area.  Officers eventually stopped the threat by shooting the man.  The entire incident was captured on video from multiple sources.  The man was a transient with a long history of mental issues and drug abuse.

Family members, who had ignored their mentally ill homeless family member for years, suddenly came out of the woodwork demanding to know why the cops shot their much beloved (albeit totally ignored) family member.  As one has come to expect, they immediately sought the assistance of an attorney rather than wait for the investigation to be completed, or for the district attorney to render a decision on whether or not charges would be filed.

Family members and their dutiful attorney demanded the video be released.  The video showed exactly what the cops said it would show, but the family and liberal politicians had a conniption when they listened to the in-car video of the officers who ended up shooting the suspect.  As the officers were nearing the scene, one of them said they should hit the suspect with their car.

OH MY GOD!!!!  What did they just say?  Hold the phone, stop the presses, yell and scream like a lunatic while waving your arms in the air…  Hit him with a car?????

Yes, hit him with the freaking car!

Lethal force is lethal force.  If lethal force is justified, it matters not whether it with a gun, a knife or the front bumper of a patrol car.  In fact, as an EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operations Course) instructor, our California POST provided driver training simulator includes a scenario where the student is encouraged to use their vehicle to stop an armed, fleeing felon who is shooting at them.  Yes, we actually train the academy recruits and anyone who takes the simulator class to run over an armed subject with their patrol car.  And that simulator scenario is a California POST approved scenario.

Now here we are, nearly seven months later, the investigation is completed and today, the District Attorney’s office released their decision: lethal force was legally justified and the cops will face no criminal charges.  In fact, they DA released their entire report, including a very long statement of all of the facts.  You can read the whole thing here, but the following excerpt sums it up nicely.

There is no doubt that Officers Tennis and Lozoya were dealing with a very dangerous individual who posed an immediate threat to the officers and the public. Joseph Mann was acting aggressively while under the influence of methamphetamine. He exhibited a deadly weapon in a rude and angry manner at multiple civilians and appeared to them to also be carrying a firearm. He slashed his knife in the direction of officers and threatened to use it to cause them bodily harm. He ran aggressively at an officer holding his knife in a threatening manner. He repeatedly refused commands to stop and disarm himself. While attempting to escape from pursuing officers, he ran directly in front of multiple businesses into which he could have easily entered and harmed others. When he finally stopped, he was holding his knife in a menacing manner and turned directly towards officers who were in close proximity trying to disarm and arrest him. Considering the totality of these circumstances, and the rapid decision the officers were forced to make because of the immediate danger to themselves and the public that Mann presented, Officers Tennis and Lozoya acted lawfully in using deadly force.

CONCLUSION
Officers Tennis and Lozoya were justified in shooting Mann to defend themselves and each other, to protect the public from imminent harm, and to prevent the escape of a suspected felon who posed a significant threat of death or serious bodily injury to others. Their conduct under these circumstances was lawful. Accordingly, we will take no further action in this matter.

If you have a different opinion, I highly encourage you to read the entire report, and then put yourself in those officer’s shoes.

After the DA’s office released their report, ultra liberal democrat Darrell Steinberg, the recently elected mayor of Sacramento, the city where this shooting occurred, released a statement that just proves what a bloviating jackass he is.  Notice how he starts by saying how much he appreciates and respects the cops, BUT then goes on at length to say how he disagrees with them and how they are bad.

“I have enormous respect for the men and women of the Sacramento Police Department. But  what unfolded with Joseph Mann is extremely tragic, unacceptable, and we are  reminded of that again today with the District Attorney’s decision.

As Mayor, I  am committed to ensuring we leave no stone unturned as we look back on what  happened. It is why I will be laser focused on the results of the ongoing  internal investigation. If the internal investigation concludes officers were  following policy, then it is past time for us to change those policies. There  must be accountability.

What else  can we do to take responsibility – to show a demonstrable difference – to  reconcile outdated policies and practices with where the true heart and culture  of our police department and City stands with our community?

This is one  of my top priorities and why City Council voted unanimously to pay for 40 hours  of comprehensive crisis intervention training for our entire police department  during our third meeting.

It is our  responsibility and moral imperative to have the best trained, equipped and  supported community police to protect all of our citizens and community at  large. We should accept nothing less and I will work to ensure we are a city  that supports the men and women in uniform so they can support all of us.”

Have you ever heard the phrase, “everything before the BUT is bullshit?”   This is a quick read and it explains why Steinberg’s public statement shows he has ZERO respect for his own police force, or for the legal decisions rendered by the District Attorney’s office, but would you expect anything different from a democrat politician, especially one in California?

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