Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones is bad at his job. Mind-bendingly bad. He and his deputies are so inept that, in 2019, they only made arrests in 1 out of every 11 rape cases they handled. In fact, about 2 out of every 3 violent crimes in the average year will leave the sheriff’s department scratching their heads with no one to arrest.
So why does the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors continue to throw money at Jones and his staff?
It appears that Jones senses his own mediocrity. Which is why he’s flooding his Facebook feed with facile copaganda and missives deriding the rising movement to defund the police. But increasingly, folks are not buying what Scott has to offer.
Take, for instance, the People’s Budget Sacramento. It’s a grassroots campaign inspired by the #PeoplesBudgetLA movement and spearheaded by incoming Sacramento City Council member Katie Valenzuela. She and dozens of local groups are working to demystify the city and county’s budgets, making them accessible to all of the Sacramento region’s residents, and giving them a say in how their tax dollars are spent. These folks are fast organizing and appear poised to take on anything the region’s police unions have to throw their way.
Speaking of police unions, West Sacramento cops apparently succeeded in pushing out former chief Tom McDonald because he advocated for police reforms in the department. Ironic, since he was hired in 2013 to clean up WSPD after a number of grisly stories came to light. You might remember the officer who was arrested for kidnapping and raping multiple women while on the job.
But you might not have heard the story of Kevin Hughey, who in 2012 had a WSPD officer barrel into his home and shoot him in front of his nine-months pregnant wife. He survived, but the department continued bothering him the following year, according to court documents. They settled in 2019 to the tune of nearly $5 million.
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