Kate Tibbitts, Sacramento woman murdered. (Photo: Facebook)
Sacramento Mayor and Councilwoman Chided for Political Response to Local Woman’s Brutal Rape and Murder
‘It is obvious that he should have never been released in the first place and given the freedom to commit his heinous crimes’
By Katy Grimes, September 9, 2021 9:53 am
The Globe reported Monday about a horrific crime committed in Sacramento: A “homeless” transient guy out on the streets despite his recent violation of parole, has been arrested for raping and murdering a Sacramento woman in the Land Park neighborhood Friday, killing her dogs and setting her house on fire.
Since then, the 3,500 prosecutors in the California District Attorneys Association confirmed that the suspect accused of the horrific sexual assault and brutal murder of the Sacramento woman on Friday September 3, 2021, was released from prison following felony convictions in 2017 and 2018 for assault with a deadly weapon and robbery, committed more crimes in June, and then was released again because of “zero bail” policies.
Wednesday, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela issued a statement that was not warmly received by some Sacramento residents. Here is what Steinberg and Valenzuela said:
The murder of Mary “Kate” Tibbitts, a well-loved resident of Land Park and a District 4 constituent, is a senseless tragedy. We mourn her death and the killing of her beloved dogs Molly and Ginny. We are thankful that first responders were dispatched quickly to her home when it was reported, and that the Sacramento Police Department has apprehended a suspect. But we’re frustrated and angry that this happened in the first place.
The suspect in this crime had been incarcerated as recently as June 2021, with a known addiction to methamphetamine and a history of violent offenses. We cannot simply release people from state prisons and county jails onto the streets without working harder to ensure that they are getting the treatment and services they desperately need to prevent them from harming themselves or others.
Further, based on his criminal history, we have serious concerns about how this individual was released from custody in the first place. He should not have been on the street.
While jail and reentry services are under the Sacramento County Sheriff’s and County Probation’s jurisdiction, we are committed to working with our county partners to prevent another tragedy from happening in our community.
We have spoken to County Supervisor Phil Serna, who is pushing for mandated treatment for people exiting the prison system with known methamphetamine issues. We plan to support him fully in those efforts, as well as efforts to continue to fund programs that serve people with methamphetamine addictions, like the Substance Use Respite and Engagement (SURE) program located in District 4. We also need to keep pushing for reentry services that ensure people exiting the jail have access to housing and supportive services, making it easier for us to check in on them and reduce the likelihood of further criminal activity.
We will also be working with our state and county partners to review the facts of this case and others to ensure that people with a history of serious, violent offenses are not being released into our city with little review or accountability as to their whereabouts. In the days ahead we will hold the Land Park community, and particularly Kate’s family and friends, in our hearts. We will work with residents on how we can all continue to enjoy the great quality of life in our neighborhoods and keep our families safe. We understand the profound anxiety and grief that this brutal killing has caused.
Our system is broken. We’re committed to continuing to work together to make this better for everyone.
Some residents addressed that it is the current politicians and political policies which led up to and allowed this violent crime to take place. Both Steinberg and Valenzuela have advocated for defunding the police as well as “bail reform:” zero bail policies.
Steinberg calls for sweeping changes to the Sacramento Police Department, but says it is not to “defund” the police. He called for changing police officer’s duties so “they would no longer respond to calls that don’t include a crime.”
This resulted in the city of Sacramento directing the police department to stop responding to all transient-related calls, unless it’s a “violent in progress.” Instead, residents of the community are directed to file online police reports, call 311 which is months behind, or the Department of Community Response, which isn’t fully operational yet, and cannot respond to calls in real time.
Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan proposed adding new police positions to the city budget, but Mayor Steinberg urged the City Council to reject the proposal, the Sacramento Bee reported. Steinberg said “that while he supports adding the positions to the next budget, which starts July 1, the money available now should instead be spent on sparking construction of affordable housing, youth programs and participatory budgeting.”
Sacramento City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela pressed the City Council to remove a minimum $10 million in funding as a starting point, from the police department, among other policing “reforms.”
Here are a few comments left on Nextdoor Sacramento on Steinberg’s and Valenzuela’s statement about the murder:
- “Not enough – if those first steps listed are “systemic change”, then our representatives do not understand the failures, both active and latent, that ultimately have lead to this horrific episode. I hope the mayor and council member will draft another statement with real change to address our very real issues.”
- “The system is broken because of people like the mayor and KV. These are the same people that have done nothing productive to limit the affects of the roving bands of unhousable drug addicts that prowl our neighborhoods. Do you remember when that boy was assulted in front of Taylors? Did the mayor do anything? Did KV take a break from her activism? Now we have our first Murder. Truly tragic but preventable.”
- “PPP – Pure Political Pandering. They even got the dogs’ names in there.”
- “Pure Political Pablum, when outrage and revolutionary policy change is palpable in this, our community. Sad but what is, is!!”
- “Not exactly a tough on crime message.”
- “It seems that the ‘systemic change’ that Mr. Steinberg and Ms. Valenzuela are suggesting is: More free stuff for criminals and drug addicts to enjoy on the streets. I would suggest that keeping them behind bars is going to be much more effective. They will have a roof over their heads, three squares and hopefully drug treatment in prison.”
- “I deeply believe there is a lesson here, which if applied to todays mess would lead to a city’s redemption clearing the way for a safer healthier, cleaner community.”
- “He’s correct that it has caused anxiety and grief, but he underestimates the anger that this murder has caused.”
- “This crime is their fault because of their policies. Plain and simple.”
- “Nothing….absolutely nothing will change until you change it at the voting booth, and if you don’t expect it to get worse. Your neighborhood is not safe: you have subsidized housing and homeless camps all around you and growing…..there is more subsidized housing and more homeless camps being planned and built as we speak. The neighborhood is history…….options, get a gun and an alarm system and sleep with one eye open trying to protect your property and yourselves or get out…..It is that simple.”
- “It seems that we voted in the last election not to accept the no bail releases and now senate is preparing a new bill (SB 262) to remove the bail system again. California politics as usual not for the protection of the innocent.”
- “I will never understand why something bad has to happen before people get off their butts to make a change. He was not the only one released, what about the others that have being released from prisons and jails? Our safety must not be that important for the law makers to make changes more severe for those that kill, rape, burn homes and buildings down, kid nap and so on. I don’t blame the police at all when it comes to arresting and also using deadly force if need be, if our law makers made punishment more severe, we wouldn’t have repeat offenders. But till that happens , I guess the good tax paying people have to suffer and live in fear. Lock doors, windows and be ready for whatever may come to harm us. That’s the world we live in. Sad and disgusting. It really is.”
The brothers of the murdered woman, Kate Tibbitts, told Sacramento FOX40 that they and the California District Attorneys Association believe California’s “zero bail” policy failed their family.
“If he ends up being convicted, and we think he will, it is obvious that he should have never been released in the first place and given the freedom to commit his heinous crimes,” George Tibbitts said. “The priority has to be public safety,” George Tibbitts told FOX40. “This is not a new story. There are many victims of crimes committed by people out on bail. And it shouldn’t happen. Particularly, one so gruesome, as happened to our sister.”
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Steinberg is a failed politician. Politicians such as him have one switch, lip service.
When their failed policies get someone killed they spew out the same tired response of how sorry they are and they will look into true reform. They lay blame solely on the guys drug issue if only the MURDERER was given more therapy in jail this could have been prevented. Pure garbage! Seriously, that is where they are taking this?
How about you acknowledge that EVIL cannot be rehabilitated! Bottom line, he should have never been released from jail to then escalate his life of crime!
May God rest Mary Kate Tibbits soul and comfort her family in their time of need.
May justice be served and this human trash be given the death sentence aka life in prison.
My prayers for Mary Kate Tibbits and family; may God’s embrace her in His Glory. Unfortunately, Steinberg and Valenzuela are afflicted with a leftist political blindness, and they don’t even realize it. Political expediency is their religion. Nothing they say will lessen the pain of the Tibbits family. These corrupt politicians should be removed either at the ballot box or through referendum.
I have to agree with your response. My question would be how do we get rid of corrupt politicians that are running the show in Sacramento? I’m tired of the excuses and the bad ideas and the forced vaccinations and face masks and other things that don’t work. I feel so bad for this poor woman who was a wonderful person to be murdered like this. Didn’t Gavin just let out 75,000 criminals out of prison?
I turn 65 in december and can’t get over the hate and stupidity of these miserable garbage humans like the mayor. She even looks miserable.The boomers who have ruined everything they touch.I have meet the fork in the road with this crowd let alone BLM f…ks.If they want blood in the streets i say bring it!Game on
Being a Prog is such a guilt free choice. Everything bad that happens because of their policies is always someone else’s fault.
What a bunch of gutless wonders.
Regarding the statement made by ignorant govt workers: “We cannot simply release people from state prisons and county jails onto the streets without working harder to ensure that they are getting the treatment and services they desperately need to prevent them from harming themselves or others.” They use the “treatment” to manipulate the govt into releasing them so they can use more drugs and run the streets. In order to be able to solve a problem, the first thing necessary is to acknowledge the problem. The State of California have wreaked havoc on Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous by breaking their ONLY requirement for membership, well aware that AA and NA are prevented from making any public remarks to defend their organizations.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking and/or using, according to the 12 Traditions of AA and NA, which govern the groups. This means you can be anyone, male, female, LGBTXYZ, old, young, fat, skinny, ugly, pretty, smart, stupid – but you have to want to quit. The State of California began years ago to send people with Court Cards to the meetings, filling them up with people who are manipulating the system and have no desire to stop drinking or using.
The public have no idea this has been going on, but I’ve been aware of it for the last 20 or more years. The meetings changed in my area from being meetings filled with people from our community who wanted to get sober, to meetings filled with an extra 70 men who had just gotten out of prison. In fact, one of the men coming to our meeting admitted he had been advised by the prison system to say he was an alcoholic so he could be paroled to our area and placed in a Sober Living Environment (SLE). Did I also mention that he was in prison for child molestation?
The State of California has cleverly manipulated the system in order to jam as many people as possible through and keep them out of jail or prison, where they belong. Bad consequences are the only thing that stop people from continuing to use and drink and get in trouble. Remove those and you have what is taking place in California today. Alcoholism and addiction have a 94% recidivism rate, meaning that of all the people who get sober today, only 6% will still be sober 10 years from now – most will go back out in the first 30-90 days.
The 10th Tradition in AA and NA is that “(AA/NA) has no opinion on outside issues, hence the (AA/NA) name ought never be drawn into public controversy.” So the hands of the program are tied. We can’t say anything about what they have done to the meetings, which are no longer as they had been for 80 years. Today the meetings are a far cry from what they had always been. There is no longer the caring and decency we once had. What a shame! The state have dropped untold numbers of unrepentant criminals into the only free program that is nationwide, and half burned down the programs.
My question is this: Why would the State of California want to 1) ruin the only free method of getting and staying sober, 2) release violent criminals to the streets and then 3) lie about it?
Thank you Sherry for sharing your experience. I am very sorry to hear of this. I had know I idea the state is doing that but it does not surprise me.
I can only guess that it comes down to money and greasing the non government organizations they hire to “solve” those issues.
Do you ever notice they love to brag they are closing prisons and “crime” is down? If they designate them as needing SLE, it gets them housed, because let’s be honest child molesters get run out of town!
Your post was most enlightening.
This began in the mid-1990s. I had an unique viewpoint on it, because we have a business and a halfway house was opened in our complex, I was in AA and knew what was going on in the meetings, and was watching the corruption going on in our small town of Paradise, CA. There were 6 halfway houses for criminals leaving the prison system – all 2 strike felons – that opened up and crammed up to 25 inmates into homes that were supposed to only have 6. They made deals with the state, as well as the local paper to send in the people from the halfway houses to work in their warehouse, get half their salaries paid by the Private Industry Council, and they walked them up and down a bike trail so the residents of the town wouldn’t see them.
The first halfway house resident went back out on heroin, stayed in the area, and later died of AIDS. They took our small town of older, retired citizens and turned it into a drug area. Old white hairs became younger people with tattoos, missing teeth, and a meth/heroin problem. What could go wrong? This is the same town that burned to the ground in 2018’s “Camp Fire.”
Very devious!
You got it Sherry, I’ve witnessed the same scenario playing out in other foothill and desert towns such as Desert Hot Springs in the Coachella Valley in the 1980s. Small, rural communities become the dumping ground for the coastal urban area’s rejects. Other well known victim towns such as Victorville, Palmdale, Mokelumne Hill, Clear Lake, Olivehurst and Willits are just some of California’s sacrifice towns that the narco trade with the approval of our state government suck the life out of. I was not aware of Paradise’s inclusion to this group until I read your message but I have visited there a few times prior to the Camp Fire and noticed the juxtaposition of retirees and young “Artists”, street peddlers and junkies. As the addicted population grows these towns become more violent and unfriendly for families. The narco industrial complex thrives and blames the local taxpayers for the problem by labeling them “intolerant”, “racist” or elitist. Meanwhile the do-gooders grow their empires in and out of the government sphere and they gain political power through drug cartel funded PACs. The casual, working, law biding citizen doesn’t have a chance in the court of public opinion. Make no mistake, there is an organized force causing the social destruction of California’s beautiful rural towns
I totally agree with you Sherry as I am a big believer in the AA/NA programs and find that it works and has for decades versus the programs pushed by these liberal politicians who have never worked in the system like I have as a Social Worker. Their policies like “needle exchange” and Prop 47, no bail keeps those using on the streets and we Social Workers have no way to now get them out of their environments and clean and sober. Public health officials and other organizations on the Democrats bankrolls want the money to flow and the more people they keep addicted and on the system the more money for their administrators and their coffers. It is truly sick how they are just pushing programs like this and the use of substances like narcan, suboxone and methadone which keeps people addicted to a substance instead of total abstinence and the skills to keep them clean and sober like AA/NA teach. Instead big pharmaceutical and government are keeping more and more people dependent which is just sick. I am fine with the short term use of these pharmaceuticals but long term is the same as having a drug problem in my mind because those substances are also addictive and we prop them up and fail to get to the root of their addiction so change can happen if they want it. We never let people withdrawal which isn’t a pleasant experience but people survive and know they have hit rock bottom and with help from AA/NA and working the steps can get free of their dependence and its physical affects. People never reach rock bottom now which they need to reach and the system just teaches them to lie and manipulate it and believe me they can and will. They steal to keep their habits alive then get rewarded for it. Prop 47 promised money for drug treatment programs yet what was created isn’t working as absolutely no oversight and not run by Social Workers but by social activists who have never worked in the system. It is horrible working in this mess created by the Democrats failed social welfare policies and it does affect us all but politicians like these two idiots don’t care. People need to wake up and start voting them out!
Leftists like Steinberg always act like innocent bystanders at the scene of the crime when they are actually the perpetrators. Blood is on their hands and justice will be done soon. It is coming and they will not escape.
No surprise from our California politicians…totally tone deaf.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela said that they will work with residents on how “we” can all continue to enjoy the great quality of life in our neighborhoods and keep our families safe? The Democrat Party has controlled the city for years and we’ve seen the quality of life in most of Sacramento’s neighborhoods degrade and many families do not feel safe?
No doubt the Sacramento Police Department provides extra special protection for Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela so they never have to worry about their safety or anyone breaking into their homes? Paroles who have been released with zero bail are probably not allowed to hang out in Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s wealthy Pocket neighborhood?