Activists blast donations from police unions to Sacramento DA
SACRAMENTO — Sacramento County’s top prosecutor received $13,000 in campaign donations from two local law enforcement unions just days after Stephon Clark was killed by Sacramento police who shot the unarmed African-American man, campaign finance records show.
The unions and Anne Marie Schubert’s camp call the donations’ timing less than a week after Clark’s death on March 18 an unfortunate coincidence. Clark, 22, was shot in the backyard of his grandparents’ south Sacramento home after police mistook the cellphone in his hand for a gun.
But activists — many of whom have repeatedly called on Schubert to file criminal charges against the officers — are blasting the cash received on March 20 and March 23 as another sign of collusion between prosecutors and police unions. Schubert’s office is reviewing Clark’s shooting for criminal violations.
“It’s not an exception to the rule – it is the rule. Their relationships with each other are incestuous,” said Cat Brooks, executive director of the Oakland-based Justice Teams Network, whose Anti Police Terror Project advocates for policing reforms and joined Sacramento protesters on Wednesday. “So the public perception is right. (DA’s offices) are beholden to law enforcement unions. You can’t engender trust when those relationships are so tightly wound.”
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra last week said his office will oversee the investigation into Clark’s death.
Teri Cox, spokeswoman for the 7,000-member California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, or CSLEA, said its $10,000 donation to Schubert’s campaign March 20 was in the works weeks before the deadly shooting. Cox said her organization’s political action committee received a request from the Schubert camp for more campaign cash on March 5 and dismissed any connection between the fatal shooting and the PAC’s political contribution.
A January event co-hosted by CSLEA and a pair of endorsement videos produced for Schubert’s re-election bid that launched Feb. 6 and Feb. 21 preceded the Schubert camp’s March 5 request, Cox said.
By the time the PAC’s donation was requested, considered, approved, and showed up in the Schubert campaign’s coffers, it was March 20.
“There was no timing involved. We’ve been for (Schubert) from the very beginning,” Cox said. “It’s unfortunate that the check had to happen at that time.”
Indeed, CSLEA has been a reliable Schubert supporter, contributing nearly $78,000 to her campaigns since 2013, including an earlier $10,000 donation in December, according to California secretary of state elections data.
Schubert campaign manager Dave Gilliard said the district attorney had also secured a $3,000 donation from the Sacramento County Alliance of Law Enforcement following a candidates’ forum in late February or early March and sponsored by the local union, saying the timing of the four-digit donation on March 23 less than a week after Clark’s death “appears to be a coincidence.”
Mary Beth Moylan, a law professor and elections expert at University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, said “most unions and political committees are not making spurof-the-moment decisions regarding donations of those amounts.”