Families slam Sacramento leaders for violence after bondsman beaten to death downtown
Families who lost loved ones to violent crime in the capital region joined Thursday with supporters of a bail bondsman beaten to death to criticize Sacramento’s mayor and others for allowing an unsafe environment downtown and other parts of the city.
Topo Padilla, a colleague of victim Kevin Brace who died in downtown Sacramento, called on Mayor Darrell Steinberg to better address the homelessness crisis and refrain from cutting Sacramento police positions amid a $66 million budget deficit. Padilla was joined by the families of homicide victims Kate Tibbett, who was killed in her Curtis Park home, and Christie Wilson, a woman murdered in Lincoln and buried for 15 years before her body was found.
“Darrell Steinberg, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Padilla said while noting he once called the Sacramento mayor a friend and ate lunch with him. “You are no friend of the people that live in the city and want to enjoy the city.”
Padilla said his employees are afraid to come to work downtown, and there should be a specialized person — akin to a czar — who attempts to secure more housing and treatment beds for people suffering from mental illness. Amid a homeless crisis and the rise in fentanyl among other scourges, he said, police are don’t have enough resources.
Steinberg, in a statement, expressed his deepest sympathies to the loved ones of Brace and said such a crime should never occur anywhere. He added the proposed budget does not cut public safety funding.
“We have contributed millions of dollars to maintaining a clean and safe downtown and are maintaining our ongoing funding commitments,” the statement said.
City Manager Howard Chan, who proposes and administers the budget under the approval of the City Council, has recommended cutting vacancies across the city, including those in the police department.
Officer Cody Tapley, a spokesman for the Sacramento Police Department, said the suspect accused in Brace’s death was not experiencing homelessness. It’s unclear why suspect Jacob Levi Mandell was ambling the streets early Monday outside the Main Jail downtown when he allegedly beat and killed Brace, who was working the graveyard shift at Padilla Bail Bonds.
The 39-year-old was a customer for Greg Padilla Bail Bonds in 2020, Greg and Topo Padilla said. But Brace’s death was not related to Mandell’s prior interactions with the company nor was the suspect angry when approaching Brace about the phone call, the owners said.
Mandell worked as seasonal wrestling coach for El Camino Fundamental High School in Arden Arcade. His contract lasted from November until March, said Raj Rai, a spokeswoman for the San Juan Unified School District. Officials at Sacramento State confirmed Thursday that Mandell graduated from the school and had participated on its wrestling team, but offered no additional comments about his time here.
Police also said Mandell had not been arrested in the weeks before Brace’s death. Court records show he had a misdemeanor case in 2020, but it wasn’t immediately clear what charges he faced or the outcome of the case.
“He made the fatal mistake of going too far to help somebody,” Padilla said of Brace, while calling him a “gentle giant.”
Niece Jordan Brace, 17, remembered her uncle as a kind and funny man who loved to help everyone. On Thursday at the news conference outside City Hall, she said Mandell “took down my uncle because he was on these drugs.”
“And our government is just watching by and letting it happen,” Jordan said. “Because they are safe in their gated mansions. It can’t happen to them, right? So it doesn’t matter — but it does.”
“We need to use our voices and be united against crime, against unfair policies that our government is pushing,” she said.
Mandell pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Wednesday. He is scheduled to return to court June 12 and remains held without bail in the Main Jail.
