SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg's home was vandalized over the weekend following demonstrations from protestors critical of the city's response to the deaths of multiple unhoused people during Northern California's big winter storm at the end of January.
Mary Lynne Vellinga, communications director with the mayor's office, said a few dozen people dressed in black with faces covered — some wearing body armor, others with shields — protested outside the mayor's Pocket neighborhood home.
"They...threw rocks at his front door, they threw rocks at the garage," Vellinga said. "They destroyed a piece of artwork — a sculpture in the front yard. They ripped out all the landscaping lights."
Mayor Steinberg has had people protest in front of his home before, but the vandalism is a first.
"I think we've graduated from a peaceful protest into something that is just scary, that is completely crossing the line," Councilmember Jay Schenirer said in a conversation with ABC10.
The protests appeared to include activists critical of the mayor's leadership when it came to opening a warming shelter for unhoused people in Sacramento during the massive winter storm late January. The Sacramento Homeless Union recently launched a recall campaign against the Sacramento mayor after at least two homeless people died during the storm.
Over 80 officers from the Sacramento Police Department were monitoring the demonstration, according to a press release. The department specified that roughly 50 people were involved in the demonstrations and that the cost of damage is estimated to be in the thousands of dollars.
In photos from the mayor's office, a broken garden light fixture and damaged art sculpture in Mayor Steinberg's front yard show some of the vandalism. Cracks and chips in the garage door are also apparent. In the mayor's driveway, chalk writing says, "A Murderer Lives," with an arrow pointing to Steinberg's home.
In a statement on the vandalism of his home, Mayor Steinberg said, "This was not protest. This was anarchy. You want to challenge me, challenge me at City Hall. Challenge me in the community. Challenge me at the ballot box."
Vellinga said that in addition to the other damages, the protestors also stacked up a pile of brush and branches that had been left in a waste container after the storm in front of the mayor's home.
"They were yelling the names of the mayor’s children and asking if they could come out and play," Vellinga said. "It was really very menacing."
Sacramento police dispersed the crowd of demonstrators after rocks were thrown at the mayor's house.
Sacramento police are investigating the acts as vandalism, but have not yet said who they believe was behind the crimes. No arrests have yet been made.
"Violence and destruction has never been and never will be acceptable," Mayor Steinberg said in the statement. "By attacking my home, you attack my community. You will be held accountable for your actions."
The Sacramento Homeless Union and the California Homeless Union issued a joint statement to say that neither group were organizers, nor participants in the protests.
"However, while not condoning whatever acts of vandalism may have been perpetrated by persons in the protest, neither will we condemn the protest nor what may have been property damage," the groups said in the statement. "There needs to be some context and proportionality here; we are talking the wholesale destruction of thousands of tents and personal possessions—including food, water and life-saving items that our Union and hundreds of volunteers supplied to the homeless to protect them as best we could from the COVID-19 pandemic."
