Former Sacramento Police Chief Speaking Out Against Self-Deployment Surges
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Following a months-long investigation into the response to the Christopher Dorner rampage, former Sacramento police chief Rick Braziel is sending officers a warning.
Just a year after retiring, Braziel is leading an effort to change police culture everywhere.
"Enough's enough," he said. "We need to stop what we're doing and change our protocols otherwise we're going to get more people hurt."
He's debriefing officers across the country, starting in Sacramento, on his investigation into the police response to ex-LAPD officer-turned-cop-killer Christopher Dorner.
"If you've got massive self-deployment, then you have no control," he said.
Dorner ended up in a shootout, holed up in a San Bernardino cabin. The sheriff's department was the lead agency and requested just seven more cops from neighboring agencies to help.
Instead up to 800 officers went there without orders, self-deploying to the Dorner shootout.
Braziel says that self-deployment is part of a culture in policing that's becoming all too common.
"Your heart was in the right place, but you frankly made things worse," he said.
It wasn't just the Dorner incident. Braziel says that also happened in the Roseville shootout with Sammy Duran that sent four officers to the hospital.
"There were no mutual aid protocols followed at all, and your had jurisdictions show up that were two counties away, and they shouldn't have been there," he said.
Braziel's new message to officers everywhere is simple: Use self-restraint before you self-deploy.
"Just because your emotion says you need to help, it's OK not to help. In some cases that's the right thing to do," he said.
Braziel will be speaking to officers California Highway Patrol headquarters in Sacramento on Wednesday.
