Don’t Call Us COPS LOSE EMERGENCY OPTIONS UNDER NEW POLICY
Police Chief Daniel Hahn Photo by Aniko Kiezel
E
ager to appease a noisy gaggle of citizens who don’t like cops, Mayor Darrell Steinberg and his City Council colleagues blundered into a policy that threatens to endanger the public and demoralize the Sacramento Police Department. With the city’s new policy, Steinberg and the council decided there’s no such thing as active
RG By R.E. Graswich City Beat Special Report
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shooters or ambushes. The mayor and council believe every 911 police emergency features an opportunity for de-escalation and negotiation, a chance for reasonable people to calm down and talk things over. The new policy concerns deadly force. Traditionally, the city instructed cops to use deadly force— shoot someone—only as a last resort. That’s still the case. But now police must dance through a set of exercises before they pull the trigger. Cops arrive at deadly force in two ways. One is to exhaust an escalating series of compliance steps. Start with negotiations, move to verbal commands, then physical controls,
nightstick or Taser. The strategy plays out over time. Unfortunately, there’s a second scenario, one that erases the time element and explodes in a blink. Suddenly, there’s a shiny metal object in someone’s hand. Or abrupt, furtive movements. Or a shooting stance. Or ambush or school shooting with bullets flying. Under Sacramento’s new policy, the city won’t make allowances for instantaneous situations, ambushes or school shooters. They don’t exist. Instead, it requires cops to use “tactics and techniques that may persuade the suspect to voluntarily comply” in all scenarios, even if
the suspect is walking down the street shooting people. There are no exceptions, no qualifying words such as “when feasible.” “Why would anyone want to join the Sacramento Police Department under this policy?” asks Police Chief Daniel Hahn. “Our officers won’t be able to defend themselves or the public. Or if they do, they risk losing their job for violating policy. This will be the most restrictive use-of-force policy in the country, bar none.” Hahn is livid over the new policy. Beyond diminishing his ability to recruit, train and keep cops, he fears for public and officer safety. He worries many officers will choose
