SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An officer is looking at felony charges for allegedly filing a false police report, according to the Sacramento Police Department.
Sacramento Police Officer Alexa Palubicki is accused of writing a false police report relating to the arrest of a Black man driving a 2020 Nissan parked at the shell gas station off Jibboom Street, according to internal police documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee.
“I’m not surprised because we know this happens so when we say the judicial system is not here to protect us, when we talk about the system, this is what we talking about,” Community activist Leia Schenk said.
Schenk said despite the police department trying to build trust, it is instances like that ruins all the progress that is made.
“Any by the way that the police department tried to bridging the community and building the gaps of trust this just takes all of that away,” Schenk said.
Schenk says the accusations against Palubicki are an example of systematic racism in policing and leads to the continued distrust that many in the black community have towards law enforcement
“This ensures the distrust that we have of the police department already because we know it’s not just her. We know there’s other officers who are doing the same thing,” Schenk explained.
John Burris is a Civil Rights Attorney specializing in police misconduct cases. He says police facilizing reports is no small matter.
“The vast majority of cases that negatively affect the African American community are the everyday police contact that individuals have with the police,” Burris said.
Burris says Black men and women are often victims of false police report filing and it important to identify it and hold officers accountable when they engage in this conduct and no longer be police officers.
The Sacramento District Attorney’s office is throwing out and reviewing cases involving Palubicki. But they are not disclosing exactly how many cases that involves.
“I’m worried about the number of African American lives that are destroyed along this process 18,19, 20 years old who cannot afford to be in the criminal justice system and once they get you in it’s a merry go round,” Burris said.
