Unlikely intervention: Pleas for criminal charges in Joseph Mann police death face history

As distressing revelations stack up about the July 11 morning that Joseph Mann lost his life, the question being pressed by his family and others is whether the two officers who shot the mentally ill black man 14 times will face criminal charges.

If history is any indication, the answer is no.

Local use of force prosecutions are extremely rare, with only two examples in the past 35 years.

In 1992, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office won an involuntary manslaughter conviction against a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent over the accidental shooting death of another agent. Four years earlier, a correctional officer was acquitted in the nonfatal shooting a Folsom Prison inmate.

But outside of those two exceptions, the DA’s office has a long history of rubber-stamping officer-involved shootings and other deadly uses of force. The DA cleared peace officers of wrongdoing in 18 cases last year.

Which may be why the Mann family’s attorney appealed to a higher power.

A day after SN&R broke the news that officers John C. Tennis and Randy R. Lozoya attempted to ram Mann with their police cruiser twice before seemingly fatally shooting him, civil rights attorney John L. Burris formally requested that the U.S. Department of Justice launch a criminal probe into what he described as “an unwarranted and pre-meditated execution” in a September 30 letter.

The three-page letter closely echoes the sequence of events presented in the SN&R story, identifying Lozoya as saying, “Fuck, fuck this guy” (referring to Mann), and one of the two officers as saying, “We’ll get him,” moments before Mann is gunned down from approximately 25 feet.

The letter and an amended federal complaint filed by Burris’ office also allege Tennis’ involvement in the 1997 chokehold death of a suspected car thief. The amended complaint accuses Tennis of killing Albert Thiel “with his bare hands, in a matter that settled out of court prior to litigation.”

While Mann family’s wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Sacramento marches toward a December hearing, local city officials say they aren’t waiting.

“The video and audio that we’ve heard has been disturbing,” said Councilman Larry Carr, who introduced a use of force proposal he expects to bring to the full council in November. “We’re moving at what I call all deliberate speed.”

As drafted, the proposal would give the council authority to weigh in on use of force incidents, which Carr says it currently is unable to do. “In our case, we do not have a council policy that says any of the things that I put in the policy,” he told SN&R. “To the extent that we do, the city won’t lurch from crisis to crisis.”

Assemblyman Kevin Michael McCarty, a former Sacramento City Council member, introduced failed legislation last year that would have required fatal officer-involved shootings to be investigated by an independent prosecutor appointed by the state attorney general.

In a September 20 Facebook post responding to Sacramento Bee coverage of the Mann shooting, McCarty called for the legislation to be revived. “This approach addresses the appearance of impropriety that stems from the close working relationship held between law enforcement and district attorneys,” he wrote.

The DA’s office released a statement saying it was still conducting its review.