Lawsuit: Sacramento is withholding records about police response to George Floyd protests

A prominent Bay Area organization is suing the city of Sacramento for allegedly withholding documents about controversial police response to recent protests in the capital city.

In February 2020, Tifanei Ressl-Moyer, an attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, submitted a five-page request under the California Public Records Act for documents regarding police response to protests, according to the lawsuit. The protests included those in the wake of the Minneapolis George Floyd killing in the summer of 2020, the “Stop the Steal” protests and counter-protests at the capitol in early 2021, and other incidents.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Sacramento County Superior Court, names the city and the police department as defendants.

City spokesman Tim Swanson declined to comment on the lawsuit because he said the city has not yet been served with it.

The city has not yet released any documents, the lawsuit said.

“It is unjustifiable that the City of Sacramento is withholding essential public records about its police department’s actions during some of the most impactful protests the city has seen,” Ressl-Moyer said in a statement. “The City’s months-long delay to provide access to basic public records is a clear violation of the law – and demonstrates the lengths they will take to avoid even the most basic act of police accountability.”

In late May and early June 2020, several large peaceful protests against police brutality were held in Oak Park, downtown and midtown. Sacramento police, as well as Sheriff’s deputies and California Highway Patrol officers responded in large numbers with non-lethal weapons, causing multiple injuries. The city also called in the National Guard.

Last year, four people filed a lawsuit against the city claiming they were injured by police rubber bullets and projectiles. They included a National Lawyers Guild observer who was wearing a hat identifying him as such, and a person who required multiple life-saving brain surgeries, the lawsuit said. An Oak Park mother of two, Shantania Love, also filed a lawsuit against the city claiming she was permanently blinded in one eye from a projectile during a protest. Deshawn Holder, 18, suffered a broken jaw from a rubber bullet, his family told The Bee at the time.

In October, the city notified LCCRSF it had compiled and reviewed 32 records, but it had not completed its review process, the complaint said. The city delayed the release of the records 13 times in 10 months, the complaint said.

The lawsuit asks a judge to order the city to release the documents promptly.

The Sacramento Bee has also been seeking documents about police response to the George Floyd protests for the last year and a half. The newspaper in July 2020 filed a request for documents pertaining to use of force incidents involving great bodily injury during the protests. The department said it had no disclosable records, and the Bee’s lawyers are pushing back.

The City Council Tuesday approved 11 new full-time staff positions in the police department to respond to Public Records Act requests.