Two Sacramento police officers still have their jobs despite being under investigation for calling a group of minors “ghetto” and “retarded,” and improperly handcuffing a Black boy detained during the incident.
Newly released documents show in October 2021, Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester reprimanded Officer Brandon Lundgren for discrimination allegations and his colleague Officer Connor Lawrence for using excessive force associated with the 2020 incident.
Police records stated on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2020, the two were dispatched to Delta Shores shopping complex to answer a call regarding juveniles loitering, fighting, and bothering other customers.
However, once the officers arrived on the scene, they repeatedly turned on and off their bodycams, selectively recording their inappropriate actions and comments toward the young people.
During the time that the camera was on, it captured Lawrence asking his partner, “How many of these kids you think are drinking lean and s##t?” according to a disciplinary letter released by the department.
Lundgren answered, “All of them.”
The letter said the footage recorded the officers calling the kids “so ghetto,” “retarded,” and saying they should just “grab somebody” when approaching the kids. The comment about grabbing any of the kids gathered was made multiple times.
The department said they failed to use their training regarding the Racial and Identity Profiling Act and used force even when it wasn’t called for.
An example of this was when Lundgren had a conversation with one of the young Black teens about having guns to be cool to their friends and referring to the young people as “a pack of wolves out here destroying the community.”
Lundgren also said to the 14-year-old Black boy, “OK, you’re the first one,” and proceeded to handcuff him and placed him in the backseat of a patrol car.
According to the letter, the teen was handcuffed for 27 minutes. However, no one from the department documented the incident.
Despite public outcry, both peace officers were only required to complete training a year after the altercation.
Lawrence and Lundgren were “required to attend a three-day Immersion Training course involving Resilience, Compassion, and Leadership for Law Enforcement.”
The two officers were also made to participate in a two-week temporary duty assignment in the Engagement Division of the Department where they were to develop and complete a community project with young people in the South Sacramento community.
Community organizer Sonia Lewis believes the officers should have been disciplined more harshly, the Gazette Xtra reports.
“People in the Black community have stressed for too long that training doesn’t deter this type of behavior,” Lewis said. “It’s a culture, it’s a norm of law enforcement. I would like to see suspensions unpaid. We need to hit them in the pockets. Too often when something really goes awry it hits the taxpayer in the pocket when huge settlements are paid out for wrongdoings by cops.”
During a July 2021 interview with the department’s internal affairs division, Lundgren acknowledged that his remark to the boy, saying “first victim,” might have had a potentially negative impact on the minor.
The cop recognized that such a statement could have led the child to believe he might become a victim of something at the hands of the officer.
Both the officers involved, the city and the Seattle Police Department have remained silent about the release of their records and have not addressed the severity or appropriateness of the reprimand they received for their actions.
