The cuts were made so that we can still maintain our response to calls for service. That staffing level for answering calls for service is a commitment to what the core responsibility of a police dept. Aston the helicopter, Sac unfortunately has substantially higher crime and more violent crime than Davis or Folsom... Is it that bad in Sac...we are number two in violent and property crime in CA

That is an interesting question..."when is too much?" I would rather argue the fact that we took the matter very seriously and took every precaution possible then have to explain if a gun man actually was in the garage and shot an officer or a passing pedestrian. As an officer I would willingly run into a building with a gunman shooting at innocent people but if I have the advantage to tactically go in and take time to give every option a try, given no immediate threat to human life, then I chose to take the extra time to end things as peacefully as possible. It is this patience and thoroughness that our officers display in these critical incidents that help incidents end with all parties as safe as possible. While people were watching SWAT officers surround he parking structure they did not get to see officers behind the scenes investigating other locations the suspect could be if he had made it out of the structure. These officers eventually located the suspect in the 3200 block of Serra where he was taken into custody without incident and the realistic looking pellet rifle was located. There is a cost to keep our community safe...this week alone our SWAT team has had four call outs. So the answer to the question of "when is too much?" is never when it comes to protecting the community's safety.

Update: when the press release was sent we only had 10 of our 12 in custody. Yesterday we were able to find the last two female teenagers involved. This was a tragic killing and unfortunately youth violence continue to rise. We are actively trying to reach our kids with programs such as Cease Fire. Cease Fire targets gang involved youths with enforcment, community based organizations, churches, and businesses to offer youths alternatives to the gang life.

Thank you Ed for your comments. Sacramento Police is way understaffed for a city our size with the crime rate we have but because the community has great officers and innovative managers we still respond quickly to violent crimes like domestic violence calls. You can't have 1.4 officers per 1000 population and expect report calls and other non violent crimes to get addressed as quickly as we all would like. In town is the Deputy Chief of Dallas and they have 2.6 officers per 1000 population and he thought they were understaffed. A protest situation involving large numbers of people surrounding a group of protesters prepared to get arrested can escalate quickly. Through many civil disobedience experiences both locally and throughout the nation, police have learned that if you don't have adequate numbers during civil disobedience things can become violent quickly. In the end our response resulted in the protesters being escorted off the street and processed for citations (except for the organizer who was taken to jail) without issues. I would rather have a large presence to keep the peace than to have fewer officers and lose control of a situation.

We are working with Council Member Kevin McCarty's office they are actually the one doing all the leg work to see if it is feasible and we will provide the staffing necessary to complete a event like gun buy back program. Most of the grant money we got was for technology upgrades and staffing increases. I don't know exactly how much of our budget is directed to the various programs but Sac Pal is a non-profit and does not receive funding from the department but I did eat my share of pancakes to help the cause.