Sacramento police killed a Black man in a Curtis Park backyard. We need to know why
Tim Foster trusted the Sacramento Police Department — at first.
After SWAT team officers killed a 19-year-old Black man named Darell Richards in Foster’s Curtis Park backyard in 2018, Foster said police officials told him it was a clear act of suicide by cop. They gave him multiple reasons to believe their story.
Police told Foster that Richards had been carrying a gun. They told him that a note in Richards’ backpack “clearly described his plan to commit suicide by cop,” said Foster. They also said body camera footage clearly showed Richards pointing a gun at officers before they opened fire.
It seemed like a simple case. At around 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2018, 911 dispatchers received a call about a masked man pointing a gun at people on Broadway. Richards ran and hid from police. When they finally encountered him over three hours later, they killed him in a hail of rifle fire.
“When this first happened, I absolutely believed what the police told us,” said Foster in an interview.
Richards’ gun turned out to be a pellet gun.
The document in Richards’ backpack, which police told Foster was a suicide note, turned out to be a homework assignment.
“That was the first time I really had a red flag,” Foster said. “What possible homework could be mistaken for a suicide note that you were going to commit suicide by cop?”
And contrary to what Foster said police told him, there was no body cam footage that showed Richards pointing a gun. The only officer whose camera might have captured a clear view of Richards had his camera turned off.
“We took them on their word, we took them in good faith,” Foster said. “And, of course, there was no body cam footage.”
Concerned by the changing story, Foster said he tried to contact the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission but never heard back. For nearly two years, he’s lived with burning questions about why police killed Richards. In the wake of national protests over the police killing of George Floyd, Foster is going public with his demand for answers.
Foster, a journalist at Capitol Weekly, wants to know why police repeatedly gave him false information about the shooting. He also wants to know why they killed Richards instead of using non-lethal means to arrest him.
“This took three-and-a-half hours from the time there were the first calls to the time that they shot him,” Foster said. “There was no ‘urgency.’ There was plenty of time to follow their own handbook which, as I understand it, indicated that in this sort of situation they should have sent the dog in.”
“We’ve all seen the movies … the scene where someone is surrounded and the police say, we’ve got you surrounded, put your hands up, come out, you’ll be fine,” Foster added. “They didn’t say a damn word to him until two seconds before they shot him.”
Like Foster, Richards’ family has lingering questions about the case. They have hired a civil rights attorney to sue the city for wrongful death and civil rights violations.
“What we’re really talking about is a mentally impaired young man who seemed to be in crisis — and he gets killed,” said John Burris, the family’s attorney. “The question is: Was there a better way to handle this? Could there have been a better effort at de-escalation? Did you have to shoot him at a time when you did when you had other viable options?”
Burris, in a legal filing, said police were “reckless and negligent” and failed to pursue non-lethal tactics. He also claims that a bullet wound through Richards’ right palm suggests that police shot Richards while he had his hands up in a “surrender posture.”
Burris, noting the growing Black Lives Matter movement and national protests against police violence, said the killing of Richards was “equally egregious.” He said Richards was struggling with mental health issues and needed help, not a SWAT team.
Asked for comment, a Sacramento Police Department spokesperson initially did not respond. On Thursday, after The Bee released a California Nation podcast episode focused on the case and again requested comment, a police spokesperson said the department is “still investigating” the incident.
That’s news to Burris, who said police are likely just trying to “tighten down” their story. In February, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert’s office declared that two officers, Todd Edgerton and Patrick Cox, took “lawful” action when they shot Richards. The DA’s investigation did not examine whether officers should have used non-lethal tactics.
The police department owes the Sacramento community a clear explanation for why its officers killed Richards, and for the shifting stories they told Tim Foster. The Bee will continue to demand answers.
“We need to relook at how policing happens in this city,” Foster said. “This should be a textbook case of what not to do.”
City leaders must do more to prevent such cases. On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council can and should approve Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s proposal to create an Inspector General position to investigate violent police actions. Independent inquiries with public findings can help to ensure accountability and transparency.
On the state level, California legislators should approve Assembly 1506 by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento. AB 1506 would create a new office at the California Department of Justice to investigate police killings at the request of local law enforcement agencies or county district attorneys. McCarty first proposed the idea in 2015, but police groups have stalled its progress.
With state leaders under pressure to address deadly policing, AB 1506 will be a crucial test of whether legislators are serious about making significant structural reforms to increase oversight.
The death of Darell Richards — like the police killings of too many other Black men — makes it exceedingly clear that the police are incapable of policing themselves.
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Sacramento police killed a Black man in a Curtis Park backyard. We need to know why."