Sacramento exonerated officer whose projectile blinded woman during 2020 protest
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The Sacramento police officer who shot a pepper ball that blinded a woman in one eye in 2020 — resulting in a $3 million city settlement — has been exonerated.
The department posted the documents regarding the incident to its website in November, days after The Sacramento Bee reported the department was in violation of a state law by not promptly releasing disciplinary documents regarding incidents that caused death or serious injury.
The documents revealed for the first time the officer’s name — Jeremy Ratcliffe — whose pepper ball hit Nia Love’s face during a May 29, 2020, south Sacramento protest against police brutality. At the protest, prompted by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, several people voiced negative experiences they’ve had with Sacramento police. Some threw objects at the officers.
The department’s Use of Force committee found that Ratcliffe’s use of force was within policy, then-Sacramento Police Capt. Norm Leong wrote in a Dec. 11, 2020 email, included in the 716 pages of documents.
“The (body worn camera) and report indicate the officer was deploying less than lethal (weapons) at subjects throwing objects at them,” Leong wrote in the email to a recipient whose name was redacted. “It appears the complainant was behind a subject throwing objects and may have been hit by a less than lethal inadvertently.”
Leong, who was later promoted to a deputy chief, left the city in November, according to his LinkedIn.
The department’s Internal Affairs unit, which is tasked with independently assessing incidents, presented the facts of the case to police leadership, then-Capt. Norm Leong reviewed and rendered the exonerated disposition, a police spokesperson said.
“I am honestly not surprised,” Love, who is Black, said Tuesday after learning the news from a reporter. “This is basically saying that me being blinded and having my life completely altered means nothing. Police officers need to start actually being held accountable for their actions. Justice is rarely served when an officer is the one that commits a crime.”
Ratcliffe did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but the documents included a narrative giving his account of the protest. He was equipped with a “less-lethal pepper ball system,” he wrote.
Ratcliffe wrote that during the incident where Love was hit people were throwing “rocks, glass bottles, full water bottles, ceramic pots and bricks at officers.” As the crowd advanced, he fired pepper balls in accordance with manufacturer and department guidelines.
“The deployment was effective and allowed officers to retreat to safety,” he wrote.
Ratcliffe added that a rock was thrown at his leg during the incident and caused swelling and bruising.
Ratcliffe has been employed with the city since 2003, according to a city employee roster The Bee obtained from a California Public Records Act request. As of February 2023, he was working in the department’s Professional Standards Unit, according to an email The Bee obtained from a separate PRA request.
Police spokespeople declined to answer Tuesday whether Ratcliffe is still working in that unit, which has teams responsible for policy, inspections, and force investigations.
The Bee’s investigation found the police department and Sheriff’s Office had each not yet released internal affairs disciplinary documents for at least 50 incidents that had taken place since Jan. 1, 2019. Since it was published, the police department and Sheriff’s Office have each released new documents about several incidents, but dozens are still missing.
The Sacramento District Attorney’s Office did not review the incident to consider if it should file criminal charges against Ratcliffe, because it did not involve a firearm shooting or a fatality.
