Pandemics, protests and politics, oh my!
It’s been baptism by fire for Lodi Police Chief Sierra Brucia
It’s a new ballgame. Again. Ever since Sierra Brucia took charge of the Lodi Police Department on May 1, 2020, it has been a never-ending sea of change and adaptation.
For example, earlier this year, the state took over investigations of officer-involved shootings that result in the death of any unarmed civilian. Fortunately, incidents like that are rare in Lodi. In fact, there may have never been one.
But, previously, all officer-involved shootings were handled by a county “protocol team.” Now, it’s different. Brucia has questions about how the new arrangement will work.
He wonders what being “armed” means. Do toy guns that look real mean the person is armed? “That’s obviously a concern,” he says.
It’s a concern in which he has first-hand experience. As a younger officer, Brucia was on a call at a Cherokee Lane gas station when a suspect pointed what appeared to be a handgun at him. Fearing for his life, Brucia fired his duty weapon at the suspect, hitting him, but not fatally. It turned out the man had a replica gun that looked very real.
Brucia has other questions, such as how much of a delay will there be before the state attorney general’s office arrives on scene? The department will have to hold the scene until investigators arrive, whenever that is.
He also fears the emotional toll on his officers, who will have to wait, potentially hours, for the state AG to arrive.
“It makes sense, in theory,” he says, but he’s concerned about now having to work with a state bureaucracy. He also worries about the obvious: will it become politicized?
Brucia stresses that he wants all the “bad actors” out of his profession, just like everyone else.
This is just the latest change in policing to send Brucia scrambling to adjust. And he’s only been the chief a little more than a year.
Pandemic Challenges
There have been other changes, too.
About the same time Brucia became chief of police, the COVID19 pandemic kicked into high gear. His, along with other city offices, were ordered closed to the public. He and his department had to adapt to not having all
their support staff working in the office. Their Partners program, among others, was paused for a year. Nothing like that had ever happened before.
They also had to adjust the kind of policing they would do. Community outreach was halted. Instead, his department was called upon to gently enforce and provide education about the very unpopular lockdown and “stay at home” orders issued by the county health department.
One notable encounter with a local church made regional news and has resulted in a lawsuit against the city and state, and some local officials.
But that’s not all. One of his first jobs after being sworn in as chief was to cut the police budget by a staggering $2 million. City leaders were anticipating the pandemic would blow a huge hole in the city’s finances.
The cuts meant bodies. Vacant officer positions couldn’t be filled and recruitments stopped. The result was having the same number of sworn personnel as the city had 30 years ago. Officers assigned to special duty were brought back to patrol. His department was shrinking.
Fortunately, the recession was short lived and federal monies helped backfill lost tax revenue.
BLM Protests
A few weeks later, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis at the hands of the police, spawning protests and riots across the country.
Lodi wasn’t spared. The city also saw its share of marches and protests, something the town had never experienced before. It was a new world, overnight.
Last September Brucia received word that an “anti-police” protest was being planned by Black Lives Matter advocates. It would start at Legion Park and wend its way into and through downtown. Social media was aflame with calls for protestors to descend on Lodi that day. Others were calling for police supporters to show up to defend the cops.
It was a recipe for an emotionally-charged melee that could get out of hand easily.
There was no playbook on how to handle such an event. The police department had never experienced anything like it before.
Brucia and his team had to come up with a plan. Fast. They quickly cobbled together a strategy. Brucia says he and his team contacted the protest organizers to map out the route and to establish some ground rules. He says, “We were well prepared for all eventualities.”
“We were not going to allow violence to happen,” says Brucia. If things turned bad and mass arrests were made, Brucia says they were ready for it.
On the day of the march, protesters squared off against each other, separated by a line of police, who were vastly outnumbered. Insults and racial slurs were hurled back and forth by each side. A bystander stood along the route revving his chainsaw. Miraculously, there was no violence.
It was ugly, but no one was hurt and there was no property damage.
Brucia looks back and counts it as a win.
But there were critics. Brucia says he received a fair amount of criticism from people who thought some of the participants should have been arrested. Others thought the police were too soft on the protesters.
Brucia says he instructed his officers not to enforce some rules, such as walking in the middle of the street, in order to avoid needless confrontations. Minor infractions were ignored, he says.
As the chief reflects back on the episode, he still believes he made the right call. Brucia is convinced that much bigger problems would have resulted if his officers had been more aggressive.
Master of Their Craft
Brucia, 48, has been with the department for 27 years. He started as an undercover officer working in a school buy program at local high schools. He’s held every rank and served in every division of the department, either as an officer or supervisor, he says.
Despite the blue uniform, Brucia considers police work, at least in his department, a whitecollar job. Education and training is stressed, now more than ever. “It gives you knowledge and perspective,” he says. “It also makes you aware of cultural trends,” he adds.
Brucia holds two master’s degrees, one in organizational leadership and another in education. Brucia says all of his command staff also have master’s degrees, and most of his officers have a college education.
Brucia says change happens much more rapidly now, and some of those changes come from listening to the community. “Different communities have different needs,” he says.
Policies and training have also changed across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Brucia says his department banned the use of the carotid restraint (choke) hold after it was found to be seldom used and ineffective. “This happened prior to Peace Officer Standards and Training Program (POST) and Governor Newsom making their own changes,” he says.
In addition, police agencies elsewhere have begun to include “activebystander” training for their officers. It teaches officers how and when to intervene if another officer’s actions are deemed inappropriate. “We have had a ‘duty to intervene’ policy at the PD for years, and it is a part of our culture and training,” says Brucia.
“We constantly strive to be the best law enforcement agency possible, and always look for ways to improve and meet the needs of our community,” Brucia adds. He regards his staff as “true masters of their craft.”
Recruitment Harder
Police work is difficult and the standards are high. Brucia says he doesn’t know if recent calls to “defund the police” are responsible for the decline in applicants, but fewer people are applying to become officers.
In 2018 LPD held an open call for police officer trainees. Some 200 applications were received. Two weekends ago the department held a similar call. Only 90 people applied. Police academies have also reported declining enrollment.
Brucia says of the 200 applicants three years ago, only nine made it through the hiring process. He says over half fail the initial background check. Of those who are actually hired, “Typically between 6775% of trainees make it through field training and probation,” he says.
Despite the changes and difficulties, Brucia says he loves his job. “I have the best job in the city,” he says. “I come to work every day with a goal to make them (his team) proud,” he says. “I want officers to be proud to work here,” he adds with smile.
When asked what his biggest surprise was, Brucia said, “How hard the job is.”
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Steve Mann is a former newspaper publisher and lifelong Lodian whose column appears most Tuesdays in the News-Sentinel. Write to Steve at aboutlodi@gmail.com.