An Open Letter To The Sacramento Sheriff's Office

by Jim March
JMarch@prodigy.net

April 12, 2002

Tuesday the 9th of April found me in Sacramento testifying before the Senate Safety Committee on a bill authored by State Senator Haynes to mildly reform CCW by stating that victims of domestic violence or hate crimes automatically are deemed as having "good cause for issuance" of a CCW permit.

I spoke for about five minutes on the various abuses in the issuance system, summarizing disgusting police behavior in various jurisdictions, starting with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office and the infamous "Colafrancesco Papers". I read out loud the exact words of James Colafrancesco upon being asked how he obtained CCW in 1994 after he was arrested for threatening somebody with a gun during a verbal confrontation while drunk:

"It is all political. It is a big political game. I am a major contributor of Lou Blanas [then UnderSheriff, now Sheriff] and Glen Craig [Sheriff at that time], and they gave me a concealed weapons permit. They told me not to screw around, and not to mess it up, and I have tried real hard not to. You can call Mo Bailey [#3 man in the department]. You can call Lou Blanas. They know I am a good guy. They know that I would never point my gun at anyone."

The members of the Senate Safety Committee visibly flinched on hearing this. One Senator (Vasconsellos) asked what this had to do with the subject at hand (allowing domestic violence and hate crime victims to score CCW) and I explained calmly but firmly that this is why people under threat currently have no chance at a permit in most jurisdictions.

I also did a summary of the Oakland CCW situation and several other cases. But reading the actual confession of bribery to obtain CCW in an official police report in Sacramento produced the most reaction -- both among the committee and in the crowd.

Four people's testimony had preceded mine, including Nadja Adolf talking about the discrimination and violence she's faced post 9/11 and compelling testimony from another about the issue of gay-bashing. I felt that my best input would be to show why they had no chance at access to CCW under the current rules. (Noted gun-grabbin' idiot Andres Soto was present in opposition, speaking on behalf of "The Trauma Foundation", so the SF General wars are by no means over, even though we've kicked the Commie Mommies out! I ended up sitting only one seat-width away from him, but decided against asking him where his hand grenade was - see also https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2017. )

The bill was shot down, but we made some damned interesting long-term political points. One shocker: Senator Vasconsellos (classic liberal Dem) did NOT vote against the bill as expected - he abstained.

Afterwards, a senior member of the brass for the Sacto Sheriff's department pulled me aside and asked for more details. He appeared to be very disturbed at what I had read. He gave me his Email address, and below is my response to him. I'm not publishing his name because he's not the problem, only somebody who asked for more info…but I think the contents of my message to him should be of wide interest, to say the least.

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Sir,

We spoke right after my testimony before the Senate safety committee on Senator Haynes' bill to reform CCW in cases of domestic violence and hate crime victimization.

During my testimony I was highly critical of Sheriff Blanas, and you asked me to provide more details. In this letter, I intend to show you everything known at this time about abuses of the CCW permit process in Sacramento County. I believe you'll find the following disturbing and compelling.

You already have paper copies of the four pages of the Colafrancesco police report excerpts; these are archived online at:

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~jemonaly/hobby/ca_firearms/94076998_1.html 
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~jemonaly/hobby/ca_firearms/94076998_2.html 
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~jemonaly/hobby/ca_firearms/94076998_3.html 
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~jemonaly/hobby/ca_firearms/94076998_4.html 

You also have a copy of the 1999 letter Sheriff Blanas sent to permit applicant Thomas Lee Anderson, then a resident of Sacramento City. In that letter, Blanas told Anderson that CCW permits for town residents were not available from the Sheriff's department "due to an agreement with Sacramento City PD Chief Art Vanegas".

I have in my possession a complete copy of a response to my Public Records Act request to the Sacramento City PD requesting info on CCW issuance. One key question centered around any cross-jurisdictional agreements with other agencies, specifically the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office.

The city of Sacramento, via the city attorney's office, formally denied that any such agreements exist, or ever existed, and denied that Art Vanegas ever asked Sheriffs Craig or Blanas to discriminate against city residents!

Obviously, somebody is lying. Whether it's Vanegas or Blanas, I have no clue.

It gets better. Effective 1/1/99, each agency that deals with CCW is required to create a "local policy manual" - Penal Code 12050.2 reads as follows:

"12050.2. Within three months of the effective date of the act adding this section [ed: 1/1/99], each licensing authority shall publish and make available a written policy summarizing the provisions of subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 12050."

For the rest of the CCW Penal Codes including the sections referred to above, see also: http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/thelaw.html  

Sheriff Blanas publishes a policy manual that meets this criteria, and it's being handed out to permit applicants, but it contains NO mention whatsoever of "town blockage" against the incorporated city of Sacramento or other jurisdictions. The Sacramento City Police Department manual isn't as professional as Blanas' version, but in any case it too makes no reference to an agreement between PD Chief and Sheriff blocking town residents from a Sheriff-issued CCW. Such an agreement would be an aspect (albeit illegal as hell) of the discretionary process, and hence required as part of the mandated manual.

I have examined successful permitholder applications from the city PD files. All active permits today are held by members of the police reserves. There are no records of denials, which usually means "peons" cannot get the blank application forms to start the process, a common form of abuse in CCW handling statewide.

Understand that if the Sheriff refuses all issuance to city residents, and the city issues only to government employees, then both are in violation of a California Appellate Court ruling in Salute vs. Pitchess, 61 Cal. App. 3d 557 (1976), in which the court called this exact policy (CCW for government employees only) "an abuse of, and not an exercise of, discretion". See also: http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/salute.html 

Worse, unlike the Salute case in which just one agency was being abusive, in Sacramento we appear to have a "conspiracy to abuse" between Vanegas and Blanas. I assume I need not go into the ramifications of conspiracies to violate civil rights?

Blanas has refused all efforts to review his CCW issuance records via the Public Records Act. He flat-out ignored my lawfully-filed request, he told the law offices of Chuck Michel to send on-site inspectors (from Los Angeles) to review the records, and he's blown off the request of at least one Sacramento City resident that I know of. I only have his policy manual by walking to the front counter and asking for an application package from the desk clerk. What's he hiding?

Last, what would be Blanas' motivation for excluding the entire city of Sacramento from the CCW application process?

One possible clue can be found in demographics data, online at:

http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/table2.xls 

Sacramento County is 9.7% black, but Sacramento City is 15%. The county's black population is basically "concentrated" within the city. Blanas has successfully "redlined" this entire demographic from access to permits. The city also has a higher concentration of Latino minorities, and in general has a lower income than county land or the wealthier suburbs.

Blanas' policies are having an effect on minority access to CCW permits. Whether the intent is deliberate or accidental is irrelevant according to US Supreme Court precedent in Arlington Heights vs. Metropolitan Housing Corp. 429 U.S. 252 (1977) and Hunter vs. Underwood 471 U.S. 222 (1985). In these cases, it is established that laws which are having even an accidental racially disparate impact and were originally crafted with racist intent can be thrown off the books in Federal court. The racist intent of California's CCW system has already been well established both by the courts and historical research. 

For an overview, see also part two of this document covering 14th Amendment equal protection law as applied to gun control in general and California CCW in particular:

https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?id=3202 

In conclusion sir, it is my duty as a citizen to inform you that your department's CCW permit administration process is among the most disgusting, corrupt, illegal, elitist and downright racist examples of law enforcement activity in the entire state, unrivaled in naked aggression towards honest citizens. It is a wide-open target for both lawsuits and ridicule, a mockery of "public service", and disgraces the entire field of law enforcement county-wide. 

The Colafrancesco affair was indeed swept under the rug, exactly as James Colafrancesco drunkenly pleaded. He got off with a $100 fine for disturbing the peace. Having been treated as "above the law" in the CCW issuance process, he acted on that belief while drunk and armed. Disgusted deputies slipped copies of this report out the back door and into the hands of activists such as myself.

Myself and a handful of other investigators have been working on a series of detailed reports on CCW abuse statewide. So far we've hit the Marin County Sheriff's Office:

https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2893 

…the city of Oakland Police Department:

https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2918 

…and the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office:

https://www.keepandbeararms.com/march/posse.asp 

Please inform Sheriff Blanas that his turn is coming.

Thank you for your attention in this matter. I fully realize you're not the problem here, and I will not publish your name on any of the various forums in which this letter will otherwise appear.

Jim March