The legacy: Police discuss how fatal shootings spurred new expansion of less-lethal gear

Last summer’s police shooting of Joseph Mann dominated headlines around Sacramento in 2016. This week, a deputy police chief said the controversy forced his department to begin a self-evaluation that is prompting a major expansion of less-lethal options for its officers.

Appearing December 11 in front of the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission, Deputy Chief Dave Polletta said that evaluating his department’s less-lethal options could be distinguished by two eras—before and after 2017. In the former, Sacramento officers carried three pieces of gear considered non-lethal: batons, pepper spray and Tasers. Each option has its limitations and all of them require an officer to be fairly close to a person. In cases when a suspect is holding something that could be considered an edged weapon, officers have to keep a safe distance.

Polletta told commissioners that, prior to 2017, the department had four primary less-lethal devices for such scenarios—bean-bag shotguns, pepper-ball guns, 44-millimeter sponge-round launchers and ballistic shields. However, they were only being carried by supervisors, which on a given shift is roughly four patrol sergeants and one lieutenant working across the entire city.

“So, by the time an incident was happening and unfolding, if a watch commander needed to get from Valley-Hi to Del Paso, you can imagine the drive time,” Polletta said. “And the incident is over with.”

In answer to a question from commissioner Basim Elkarra, the deputy chief later confirmed that this was the case during the July 11, 2016, officer-involved shooting of Mann on Del Paso Boulevard. Polletta also said that the Mann shooting, along with the officer-involved shooting of Flenaugh earlier that year, had lead to a shift in the department’s approach.

“After the second incident, on Del Paso, we as a management team extensively reviewed these incidents and realized that we needed to change some things internally with how we deployed our less-lethal stuff,” Polletta acknowledged.

In February 2017, the City Council approved an additional $800,000 for the Police Department’s budget, specifically to make the same array of less-lethal devices supervisors carry available to all patrol units. Polletta reported that the department has now made major purchases and already put 225 officers through the associated training to uses those devices. He ended his presentation on a reflective note.

“I think as an organization we kind of failed to evolve with time,” he told commissioners. “And so maybe we should have been on this a couple of years ago, and not prompted by an incident or a couple of incidents. We should have had the foresight to expand these less lethal capabilities at those times.”