Sacramento Homelessness Encampment Brings Crime and Addiction Into Community | Dan Tibbitts

The morning I read about her horrific attack, the rape, and the murder of her, I mean, it's sending chills through my spine right now. 76,000 judges, 76,000 prosecution and defense attorneys, 76,000 groups of law enforcement, 76,000 juries, each with 12 people, like 1 and 1.5 million people involved in incarcerating these people in the first place. And then a handful of bureaucrats and elected officials are undoing the work of 1.5 million people on a whim and releasing these people. My guests today are Dan Tibbetts and Amy Gardner, who are residents of Sacramento County. Today, they'll tell us how their lives have been impacted with homeless encampments growing in their community. People are jumping fences and taking bikes. People are jumping fences and taking lawn furniture. Two of my friends have both had people try to break into their house in the middle of the night. Now, you are pretty vocal about this. And you've been vocal talking about it to media. You've been, why are you doing this? I don't want there to be other Kate Tibbetts out there. I'm Siamak Khurrami. Welcome to California Insider. Dan, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thank you very much, Siamak, for having me. I greatly appreciate it. Dan, we're excited to have you to share your story with us, because we actually had a number of your community members reach out to us about Sacramento's homelessness issue. And Sacramento is facing a lot of homelessness, and homeless are coming to the community. But besides the homelessness, there is another element that most people may not be aware of, which you have been very vocal about. It's the crime elements. Unfortunately, you faced a big tragedy in your family, and you have this story to share with us. Your sister was murdered by a homeless person breaking into her house. Can you tell us what's going on with homelessness in Sacramento right now? So it is forecast that we have around 10,000 homeless people in Sacramento County. Actually, I've heard numbers higher than that, much higher than that, but 10,000 is the number that the city governance cites, so let's run with that. I've also been told statistics of between 80 and 95% of these 10,000 people are addicted to narcotics, and usually it's meth or fentanyl. Well, especially with meth, it causes extreme violence in the addicts. Actually, my sister suffered because of that, because the person who murdered her was a meth addict. So these people are portrayed by governance and advocates for the homeless community as just people down on their luck. Reality is, if 80 to 95% of them are addicted to narcotics and many of them being meth, it causes extreme violence, aggression in these people, and that aggression and violence is being carried out by them on the law-abiding citizens all throughout our community. Now, Dan, you live close by your sister, right? About a mile away. What was the community like? What type of community is this, and what happened? Can you explain to us? Okay, so I live in, my sister and I both live in the Land Park neighborhood of Sacramento. It's a well, it's a nice neighborhood. It was a relatively safe neighborhood relative to the rest of Sacramento. The homeless population in the Land Park neighborhood, we didn't have a population before the pandemic. We do now, and this person was around the neighborhood. Was he living in a tent? Was it tents over there, or? Couldn't, well, there's tents on the fringes, and actually, that's where he was apprehended the day after he murdered my sister, but he was in the neighborhood, in the Land Park. There's, Land Park neighborhood, there's a nice park there, and he was around there, presumably sleeping in some of the bushes and hedges and stuff that are in Land Park, and causing concern throughout the neighborhood. And police had various reports on him, and never actually found him, and actually, the night my sister was murdered, he was all over the street my sister lived on, in the blocks, around the blocks, different streets, doing various things, but happened to decide to break into my sister's home, and it cost her her life. Can you explain to us, your sister's case, the person that unfortunately murdered her, this person, can you tell us the history? He was released, it was a mix of policies that caused this, right? Yes, so, okay, well, first off, I don't know what, apparently he's been in and out of trouble for most of his life, but he committed his second violent felony in 2017, and he was released under Prop 57 in 2018. After being released, he reportedly moved to Santa Cruz County, where he committed various crimes, and was in and out of jail down there. Then he came back to Sacramento County, I guess that's his home, I'm not sure when, but in May of 2021, he was apprehended in possession of a stolen vehicle. And, okay, so my sister died of a perfect storm, or three strikes, call it either one, between Prop 57, Prop 47, and zero bail. So Prop 57 released him in 2018, when he should have been in jail for another seven years, I think, prison. 2021, May, he steals a car and is apprehended. But because that was a non-violent crime, it was decriminalized under Prop 47. So they could, this was Elk Grove Police Department, they couldn't hold him. And then the third strike, when they released him, the state legislature, early in the COVID pandemic, started a zero bail policy, because they didn't want COVID spreading in jails. So they implemented an emergency procedure for zero bail. And so when he was released, it was under zero bail. And he was released under a pinky swear that he would show up for his arraignment. Go figure, he doesn't show up for his arraignment in June, and therefore has a warrant out for his arrest. And then three months later, he pays my sister a visit, which ended my sister's life. Did you look into the state policies afterwards? Did you, what was the process for you to find all this out? Well, it started with Ann Marie Schubert, our then District Attorney of Sacramento, basically identifying the politics that led to my sister's murder. And then it's like, really, is that true? So I started researching and found that it was true. So between Props 57 and 47, and zero bail. And also our lackadaisical approach to the homeless crisis. Before all this happened to you, did you know about these policies? Yes, I did. I remember, I'm a voter, I practice my civil liberties, and my responsibility is a citizen and vote. And 2014, Prop 47 was put before the voters of the state. And in 2016, Prop 57 was. And I think it was in 2016 also, I think it was Prop 25. It was the zero bail was put before the state. Yes, I'm aware of these policies and I researched them. I understand what they're going, try to understand what they're going to do and vote against them. And they all passed, actually 25 passed, but it actually went the other way. It was the state population saying, we do not want zero bail. So it was actually, by it passing, it was a good thing for criminal justice. But Prop 47 and Prop 57 were very bad for public safety. So yes, I'm aware of these things. And I think to myself when Prop 47 and 57 passed, okay, things are gonna go bad. How bad? Time will tell. Never in my worst nightmares did I realize how personally it was gonna hit my family. Do you think the average people that live in Sacramento, do you think they know what's going on? Do they feel what's happening there? No, I really don't. People think that if they're concerned about crime, people think that who they vote for, for sheriff and for district attorney is all that matters. What they don't realize is that who they vote for for the state assembly and the state Senate and for governor and for attorney general are far more important to criminal justice than the district attorney and the sheriff. So the laws that are passing is really impacting. It's tying the hands of law enforcement and district attorneys. They can only operate under the rules of the state government. Do you feel safe in Sacramento? No, not anymore. I did before September 2nd, 2021. Those days are long gone. I don't feel safe anywhere in the state. Amy Gardner, a local resident from Dan Tibbetts area founded the advocacy group MESA in 2022 to address the situation in Sacramento. People are jumping fences and taking bikes. People are jumping fences and taking lawn furniture. You see a lot of that. And also when the closer you get to a camp, unfortunately, two of my friends who live very close to the large one now have both had people try to break into their house in the middle of the night. So they were lucky, they had large dogs, they had security systems, but that's not the life that we work for. That's not the life we want. We want to feel safe in our houses. We wanna feel safe in our community. Do you feel safe? No. Was it like this before the pandemic? When was it the time that you started not feeling safe? Well, I will say that it was a huge, it was very sad to hear about Ms. Tibbetts who got murdered in her home. That was probably three years ago. I mean, it's sending chills through my spine right now. It's Sacramento, you have beautiful, cool breezes at night and you're used to having your windows open. And when you live in a safe environment, of course you would have your windows open. The morning I read about her horrific attack, the rape and the murder of her, and then that person putting her house on fire, I have had the windows all locked up and security system on 100% from that day forward. So I would say for me, that was the moment that that happened. I wasn't a political person before I got involved with this and I did not think it was going to be this hard to get any change. I have heard that it's all about policy. So we have broken policy. We have policy that's not effective for the people living on the street or for us people who are housed. And it all comes down to political will. Now you are pretty vocal about this and you have been vocal talking about it to media. Why are you doing this? Because I don't want there to be other Kate Tibbetts out there. We've got too many victims out there. And people are very concerned about the skyrocketing crime rate. They need to understand what's causing it. It's not just happening in spite of what our state governance is doing. It's happening because of our state governance and our local governance. Folks, you're probably been hearing me talk about WireEFI for a while now. WireEFI has been getting a ton of phone calls from you and I thank you for supporting an investment that actually helps people. A lot of people are talking about this investment and I like to review the basics with you. First off, yes, it's true. You can earn up to 10.25% fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market or to the Fed. You can turn your income on or off, compounded whatever you choose and there are absolutely no fees. There are no restriction on your principal if you ever need your money back and you'll get your monthly statement with no surprises. If you are not sure if you can trust this economy, this secure collateralized portfolio may be a very good option for you. Just go to investwireefi.com. That's invest, the letter Y, then reefi.com. Folks, I take my endorsements very seriously. If you're looking for a solid investment that helps people, contact my friends at WireEFI and then tell them CMI Kurami sent you. Now let's go back to the interview. So you think this is in our control if we wanted to fix this weekend? Well, it's absolutely in the control of the state legislature, the governor, city and county governance, city councils and board of supervisors. It's absolutely in their control. There was a zero bill passed sometime before 2016, but then groups got it on the 2016 ballot as Prop 25 to do away with zero bill, which happened. Prop 25 passed. So the will of the people was we do not want zero bill. So 2021, Bob Hertzberg offers a bill pushing for zero bill. And it passes the Senate and then it goes to the assembly. And then my sister's murder happens. Five days after my sister's murder, Bob Hertzberg pulled the bill and put it on inactive because he didn't want the incident. He referred to my sister's brutal murder as the incident. He didn't want the incident distracting his colleagues in the assembly from doing what he called the right thing and voting for his bill. So it went back on inactive. Then in 2022, in the dark of night, he pulled it off inactive, put it back on the Senate floor. It passed. Nobody, there was no discussion about it, that it happened. So then the California District Attorneys Association finds out about it and that it's being sent over to the assembly. They reached out to me and asked me to, because zero bill was a big part of my sister's murder. So they asked me to do some interviews, do a commercial, which I did, opposing, I'm drawing a blank on what Senate bill number it was, but it was zero bill. And then on like the 28th or so of August, the session ends at the end of August. About five days before, we do a press conference on the state capitol steps. And I was one of the speakers at that. So then like three days before the end of the session, there's a map dash in the assembly to put everything that's been put before the assembly members bring it to a vote. Fine. This bill does not emerge on the first, the 29th and 30th. So I'm watching on the 31st through the stream. And at like 10 o'clock at night. That's what they do. I think there's a hundred, 200 bills come out and they just- Yes, at like 10 o'clock that night on the 31st, it finally comes on to the floor and they do a vote. There's 80 members in the assembly. So they need 41 votes to pass a bill. It gets to like 30, 31, something like that. The speaker of the assembly is about to close the vote, killing the bill. But before they do, a partner of Bob Hertzberg from the Senate, but in the assembly, says, hold on, put it on, I forget what they call it, call. I think they call it. Just basically set it aside for a little while while we try to muster some more votes. Set it aside. An hour or so later, they bring it back up and put it back to a vote. And it climbed from that 30, 31 up to 35, 36, I forget the number. And the speaker's about to close it again and killing it, but they put it back on call. Then at 11.50 that night, so 10 minutes left in the legislative session, they pull it back up and open it back up to a vote. It climbed to 39 and then it stopped. They waited for like five minutes. I don't know what they're doing in the background, but some of these trying to get fellow assembly members to just a couple more to vote for it. And finally the speaker says, enough, we're closing it. They let it. But before they could actually close it, people, assembly members, not wanting to be linked to it since it's not gonna pass, they changed their votes from yes to no. So it dropped from 39 down to like 33, which was the final vote. Clearly ignoring the will of the people. The will of the people is we do not want zero bail. Because there was a ballot initiative that said they don't want it, right? Prop 25 in 2016, yes. Clearly ignoring the will of the people and trying to shove it down our throats. Right now our mayor does not have the political will to fix this. He is throwing his hands up in the air. He's abdicating any control that the city council has over what happens to the homeless situation by giving all of the responsibility to the city manager. And he's also, I would say the city council and our mayor are creating unnecessary chaos because they recently changed it from department of community response, which is a new group that was set up during the pandemic to really address some of these low level, non-violent things. DCR had been working in conjunction with SAC police. They've also worked in conjunction with fire, but SAC police is the person. If you have someone beating a woman senseless outside your door, you call police. Well, now mayor Steinberg has decided to put all of the homeless response within SAC fire, which I don't know why we're putting something that you're dealing with criminal activity, you're dealing with safety, and you're putting it all under the responsibility of SAC fire. 59 or 60% of the voters supported capital punishment. So fast forward to 2018 when Gavin Newsom is running for governor. He says, I'm against capital punishment, but the will of the people is to support it. So I will not do anything to change capital punishment. What's he do as soon as he becomes governor, he pushes his personal belief, puts a moratorium on capital punishment, and is in the process of dismantling the infrastructure at San Quentin where capital punishment is carried out. So not that I'm, I'm not saying I'm for or against capital punishment. 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Again, go to leavingcalifornia.com. So Dan, if Governor Newsom came to you tomorrow and said, Dan, we wanna fix this, what do you think you would do? If he came to you and said, Dan, we wanna fix this, you take charge, how can we fix it? Hypothetically, if it happened, okay, first off, starting point, in fact, I've reached out to an assembly member trying to get them to push a bill, but basically, I would start with that list of 100 crimes that are used to categorize. They're told they're nonviolent, but they're like very, you know, they look very violent when you read the list. Recategorize those as violent, and hold people in prison for their sentences if they've committed these crimes, just like the rest of the violent crimes. That would be number one. Number two, stop talking about zero bail. Number three, Prop 47 and decriminalized crimes. It's had, what it has done is emboldened criminals. People steal a car, they're apprehended. It's a nonviolent crime, go ahead. You just got a misdemeanor. Used to be a felony, but now it's a misdemeanor. Go on. It's emboldened them to commit far more violent crimes. They're releasing, they're trying to release 76,000 felons early. Like I said earlier, there was 76,000 trials to convict these people. 76,000 judges, 76,000 prosecution and defense attorneys, 76,000 groups of law enforcement. 76,000 juries, each with 12 people. Like one and a half million people involved in incarcerating these people in the first place. And then a handful of bureaucrats and elected officials are undoing the work of 1.5 million people on a whim and releasing these people. So we need to, when trials convict people and give sentence, those sentences need to be carried out. You're given 20 years by the court, you need to serve 20 years. A life sentence, life without the caveat of life without parole, just a life sentence, you're eligible for parole after seven years. You can be sentenced to life and be out of prison in seven years. There's this thought, Dan, that these drug dealers, some of them need to make a living and they're doing drug dealing because, and this is very, very thought of in San Francisco. A lot of people say, a lot of government leaders will say, you know, these drug dealers are making a living. They can't, they're feeding their family through this, so it's fine, it's a job. What are your thoughts on that? Okay, well, first off, like I said earlier, drug dealers should be, when their customers, the drug addicts who turn to them to fuel their addictions, when those drug addicts commit crimes, the drug dealers should be accessories to those crimes. Person who killed my sister, he was burglarizing. He was trying to get things that he can sell. To get money to buy drugs. So if we are saying, that argument is saying we should condone the activities of the drug dealers, even if it means their addicts are murdering people. So should we just accept that people like my sister are gonna be murdered then? That's the counter argument right there. When we accept the crime that happens by them, the drug traffickers, selling their drugs, and what crime that leads to, we should accept it as a society. That would be the counter argument, and if that's what we're going to accept as society, we're done as a society. So you think we should look at one or two more steps further of what happens to that drug addict, and what that drug addict does to society. Absolutely, absolutely. Now do you have any advice for people that live in Sacramento or California? We have to think about all the people. And it is heartbreaking when I see someone, I have an elderly woman who she can't get services, she's sleeping in the park. I think she probably has some delusions. To not be able to get a woman who's probably 70 years old, who's living in the park, getting rained on, getting the sprinklers on, that's not right by her. That's not right by her family. And it's not right by anyone who's dealing where they're feeling scared, and they're having safety issues. If you're getting attacked, if you're getting bludgeoned in the head with a rock, I mean, those are things that are happening all around me. So I would say, get active, you know, what a Sacramentan should do. Get active, get to know what you need to do, and make your voice heard. It's going to the city council meetings, it's going and putting in e-comments. And it is going and writing your council members and our mayor to tell them what you expect and make them accountable. Well, Amy Gardner, it was great to have you on California Insider. Yes, definitely, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And hopefully we can make Sacramento and California a much better place like it used to be, the beautiful golden state. Dan Tibbetts, victim advocate from Sacramento, it was great to have you on California Insider. Appreciate being here, Sliyamak, thank you so much. If you haven't checked out CaliforniaInsider.com, we highly recommend you do that now, because we're going to have a lot of news and videos there. And on top of what we have there right now, we are building a really big platform to cover what's happening in California. So you can be informed. We're going to have more shows, more videos, more topics of life in California. Go to CaliforniaInsider.com and we'll see you there.