Audit of Sacramento Police reveals a stockpile of equipment and bad accounting | Opinion

Sacramento City Council members gathered this week to rescind, review and issue again the annual ordinance that approves the purchase of military equipment for the police department. That renewed ordinance passed 6-3; a foreseeable tally, but one that’s still better than last year’s vote on the same ordinance which must be renewed yearly via provisions set out in Assembly Bill 481.

This year at least, council members Katie Valenzuela, Caity Maple and Mai Vang stood together in voting “No” on an audit and proposed budget that, at best, laughs in the face of serious community concerns and at worst, demonstrates outright ineptitude by the city’s law enforcement.

Though the Sacramento Police Department was hesitantly praised at the meeting for its recent attempts at outreach regarding their Military Equipment Use Policy, it has to be said that any community-based work would be exceptional in the face of the department’s prior attempts.

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But because it’s always one step forward, two steps back with the SPD, they then all but ignored the advice they were given by those communities and also by the Police Review Commission, the formation of which was specifically designed to render advice on topics such as this.

People in Sacramento have repeatedly demanded accountability and transparency when military-grade equipment is used by the police — that shouldn’t be a hard thing to deliver. Yet Lester and her department continue to inch forward toward those goals, and only when repeatedly forced.

“I feel like we keep giving direction that isn’t quite done by ‘the next time,’ and I hate saying ‘the next time’ because this was supposed to be the next time,” said Valenzuela in her remarks, followed closely by a weary sigh.

Among the many concerns the Review Commission and community members raised were the way in which the use of force incidents were tallied and how they were noted by location. Use-of-force incidents were broken down by police district, not by zip code, which council members noted is a much better way to understand the location of these use-of-force events.

Additionally, the department presented only 86 uses of force, 26 of which involved the use of military equipment, on a total of 18 suspects, but their own documents state that the total number of uses of military equipment numbers was 852. All of the police department’s analytics centered on that small sample size of 26, including a breakdown of demographics where it appeared white suspects were just as likely as Black and brown suspects to be involved in these incidents. This, despite data to the contrary, including the language of AB 481 itself, which recognizes that “Military equipment is more frequently deployed in low-income Black and Brown communities, meaning the risks and impacts of police militarization are experienced most acutely in marginalized communities.”

The city has to have “a real and full understanding of when and where this equipment is being used,” Valenzuela said. Separating use incidents by police districts only serves to muddy the data they’re required to present, though admittedly, that data is complex and takes time to prepare. The SPD has said repeatedly that they are in the process of hiring a data analyst, but with a record budget of $228 million, it’s unacceptable that they haven’t filled the position yet.

“I need to see that data so I can make a judgment and we can all make a judgment on how it’s being used,” Maple said. “Right now, I can’t look at this and say are we using this around certain groups more or less? Around certain neighborhoods more or less? I really have no idea.”

Setting aside the lack of accurate analytics, which is legally required by AB 481, could someone please explain how the Sacramento Police Department missed thousands of rounds of ammunition and dozens of rifles and guns in last year’s auditing process? Were they just making up numbers in last year’s report?

The 2023 audit, which Chief Kathy Lester admitted actually involved counting the stored equipment this time, revealed hundreds of missing items that were not included in the prior year’s report. For instance, this year’s auditors found 200 Colt 6920 Series Patrol Rifles, a gas-operated semi-automatic rifle with a 16.1-inch barrel, that were completely and “inadvertently omitted.”

Police auditors also found 50 “Baffled Canister Grenades” that weren’t included in last year’s report, and an additional 126 rounds of Ferret 40mm Liquid Barricade Penetrator bullets, which “ upon impacting …ruptures and instantaneously delivers a small chemical payload” designed to cause “pain compliance, temporary discomfort and/or incapacitation.”

And that’s just a few of the missing items; in all, 24 different types of equipment were found to have been incorrectly reported in last year’s audit, totaling thousands of guns, rounds, grenades, chemical payloads and more.

In addition to updating the council on the actual numbers of their military equipment, the police department also provided a procurement list, which they hope to buy in the next year.

On that list includes a request for a ”Super-Sock Bean Bag,” an “aerodynamic projectile” that is used to “momentarily incapacitate violent, non-compliant subjects,” according to the manufacturer. Last year, SPD reported finding 2,525 of these rounds in stock, but in this year’s audit, suddenly found an additional 7,600, for a total of more than 10,000. Moreover, in their procurement requests, the police department is requesting to buy an additional 6,000, at a cost of $35,400.

What does the police department possibly need with more than 16,000 bean bag bullets? And in what world would a miscount of this magnitude be considered acceptable operating procedure? I was held to a higher standard accounting what was stored in the freezer at the ice cream parlor I used to work at. Yet here in the city of Sacramento, neither Police Chief Lester nor any of her staff are going to be held accountable for missing thousands of dollars worth of military-grade equipment bought with public taxpayer money.

The Amnesty International Sacramento Group wrote in its report that they believe there are indications of “stockpiling” by the Sacramento Police.

“Overly large reserves should be explained, and a moratorium should be placed on further acquisitions in these cases unless and until the City Council deems otherwise,” wrote Annamarie Smith in the Amnesty International report. “We are owed data pertaining to AB 481 ‘uses,’ namely 852 deployments of military equipment. By stopping short at 26 deployments, the Sacramento PD is concealing 96.95 percent of its uses of military equipment from the City Council, the (Sacramento Community Police Review Commission) and the public.”

Sacramento’s many precautions and rules around police use of military-grade equipment aren’t worth the ink they’re printed with if they’re not going to be enforced. With this report, we have concrete proof that Sacramento can’t trust its police department to accurately catalog or report uses of the many thousands of items of equipment it has bought — equipment that is turning our law enforcement into a homegrown militia with the capabilities of an army.

It’s too late this year to hope that the council will see through a misleading audit, presented with no time to question or return direction. Maybe next year, we can do better, or at least push the Sacramento Police Department toward actual accountability. I only wonder how many rifles they’ll find between now and then.