No curfew Sunday night in Sacramento, but here’s what will be different
5 p.m. update:
Facing a potential second night of vandalism and theft, the Sacramento City Council decided against imposing a curfew or calling in the National Guard on Sunday night.
The council made the decision after meeting virtually for more than two hours in an emergency closed session Sunday afternoon.
The city will, however, “reserve the ability” to call a curfew if the behavior from last night continues, Mayor Darrell Steinberg said during a virtual press conference Sunday.
“We do not believe, based on experience from other jurisdictions, that a curfew would necessarily be successful because those who are committed to perpetrating looting and violence would probably ignore the curfew anyway,” Steinberg said. “So we reserve the ability, but not tonight.”
Saturday night, people stole items from Macy’s and several other downtown shops and police did not stop them. Sunday night, Steinberg said he does not believe that will happen because of mutual aid agreements with other law enforcement agencies that have been “elevated.”
“I believe the safety of the public and the safety of police officers themselves are paramount and that will remain tonight,“ Steinberg said. “But I do believe that they will intervene even faster tonight because of the mutual aid agreements that will be elevated this evening and will allow them to be able to move faster.”
Asked how the city will help the small businesses that suffered property damage, Steinberg pointed to $10 million the city plans to spend on small business assistance in federal coronavirus stimulus funding.
The council called on authorities in Minnesota prosecutors to charge the other three Minneapolis police officers who stood by while former officer Derek Chauvin pinned his leg onto George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while he complained that he could not breathe and eventually stopped moving.
“The City Council condemns in the strongest terms the killing of George Floyd,” Steinberg read from a prepared united message from the council. “We believe that the officers responsible should be prosecuted and brought to justice.”
As the press conference was coming to a close just before 6 p.m., another march downtown had just begun.
“We pledge to the people of Sacramento we are doing everything in our power, together with the city manager and police chief, to assure tonight will be different,” Steinberg said.
Original story:
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg toured the ravaged downtown Macy’s on Sunday morning, saying he was upset by the destruction. He isn’t second-guessing police, who he says were in a tough position Saturday night.
Steinberg said he will meet with Police Chief Daniel Hahn, the city manager and council members this afternoon about the possibility of imposing a curfew for Sunday night.
Other cities have tried curfews this week in an attempt to reduce the violence and looting in the wake of the George Floyd shooting in Minneapolis last week. But it’s not clear they have worked, as violence continued Saturday night throughout the country.
“It could have unintended consequences of encouraging people who would be bent on this kind of destruction to violate the curfew,” Steinberg said. “If curfew would be effective, I would be very open to that. But I want to get the professional judgment of our law enforcement.
Steinberg, on a tour of downtown Sunday morning, said the Macy’s store looked as if a hurricane had passed through. Display cases were smashed. Clothes and other items were strewn on the floor. Looters had set a fire in the store, but the sprinkler system came on and doused it.
“It’s terrible,” he said.
A work crew spent the early-morning hours screwing wooden coverings over the store’s shattered doors, as did other crews throughout midtown and downtown.
Macy’s, which had been closed for two months because of the coronavirus, was set to reopen Monday. Now, Steinberg said, it may take weeks to reconstruct the store’s shattered interior.
The mayor said he had no criticism of the police efforts on Saturday night, given the numbers of people that splintered into groups around downtown late in the evening and into the early morning when much of the looting took place.
“Police in Sacramento are in a precarious and difficult position on how to respond,” he said. “The police are caught between wanting to go right in and arrest the perpetrators, versus not elevating the situation in such as way that the potential for more violence where people get hurt or killed is more likely.
“So I am not going to second guess. I am going to assess. I have faith in the police chief’s judgment in his balancing of those two very difficult factors. Today, though, is a different day and we want to learn and reassess if appropriate.”
Steinberg said the police will try to track down and arrest the people who broke into a handful of businesses Saturday night, including Sharif Jewelry.
The mayor, who has worked with and knows many community advocates on police brutality issues, said he suspects some of the looters could be from outside Sacramento. The Bee observed what appeared to be Antifa activists activists at the protest, some of whom have come from the Bay Area to similar Sacramento protests in the past.
“I don’t know,” Steinberg said, when asked about outside provocateurs. “We’ve heard all kinds of things - word that some of this is organized from outside Sacramento.”
He said he recognizes the emotions many feel about the police killing of George Floyd last week but “small businesses here are not what caused the nation’s anguish.”
The mayor found himself in a street-corner debate with a handful of angry residents Sunday morning at Seventh and J streets. Several members of the group accused him of not doing enough to solve police brutality, and complained that he was not on the streets Saturday night trying to calm matters.
“You don’t walk here at midnight when things are burning,” said Tiffany Bedolla who owns a business, Safe Space Body Work, at that corner, and who watched in fear Saturday night. She teared up as she pleaded with him. “We need a leader. Please!”
The mayor promised the group he would be out at Cesar Chavez Plaza, where a protest gathering is planned, this afternoon to talk with people, and would invite council members as well.
However, a spokeswoman for the mayor, Mary Lynne Vellinga, said Steinberg decided not to go out after consulting with police and other city officials. Vellinga said the mayor and council could become lightning rods, putting people at risk.
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 12:25 PM with the headline "No curfew Sunday night in Sacramento, but here’s what will be different."
