In one section of their magnificent article reporting a probe into a California police department’s investigations, independent newsrooms Open Vallejo and ProPublica simply listed the number of days it took police departments to close investigations into fatal police encounters: 243, 579, 615, 657, 764, and 1,470. Meanwhile, in each of the six cases the cop was allowed to kill another person while being investigated in the first shooting. It is the kind of trend that should make city officials sick to their stomachs but is par for the course of alleged police corruption in Vallejo, a Bay Area city 30 miles north of San Francisco. In 2008, that city filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.
I reported on the city more than 10 years later in a piece highlighting instances of police lying to the public.
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Vallejo police had accused Angel Ramos, 20, of being armed with a knife when they shot him in 2017 for having attacked a minor. Journalist Sam Levin tweeted: “No knife was recovered near Angel. What’s more, two officers said they had not seen him holding a knife. Two paramedics said they had seen no knife near his body. And the teenage victim told police and later testified that Angel didn’t have a knife.”
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Officer Zachary Jacobsen, the officer who shot Ramos, was still being investigated when he was "involved in the killing of Jeffrey Barboa," ProPublica and Open Vallejo reported. It took the police department 579 days to close the first investigation alone, and it was hardly the only case of such a delay from the Vallejo Police Department (VPD).
ProPublica and Open Vallejo analyzed more than 15,000 pages of court, forensic, and police records on Vallejo’s 17 deadly police shootings since 2011 and found that on average, the police department had taken 20 months to review fatal officer shootings. In six of those cases, officers killed another person while they were being investigated.
“This isn’t accepted practice. This isn’t even basement standard practice,” Louis Dekmar, a former Justice Department civil rights monitor, told ProPublica and Open Vallejo. “Any agency that takes that long is saying that this isn’t a priority.”
In another example of an investigation taking over a year, the city ended up paying the victim’s family $5.7 million in a settlement. The alleged violation that ended with Ronell Foster's death on Feb. 13, 2018 was "swerving in and out of traffic lanes without a bike light," ProPublica and Open Vallejo reported. Foster reportedly told police to stop messing with him and refused to stop for officer Ryan McMahon. McMahon chased Foster, used a Taser on him, and shot him seven times. The officer failed to activate his body camera until after firing the shots, and he also failed to adhere to department policy requiring officers use the radio in such foot chases.
The investigation into McMahon—a process that took 615 days—netted a one-to-three-day training for the officer, but not before his policing ended in another death: that of 29-year-old Willie McCoy, according to ProPublica and Open Vallejo.
Investigators failed to meet Solano County's 30-day goal for police departments to complete investigative reports in 11 of the 17 cases of officer-involved killings, the news organizations found. In six cases—though possibly not the same six cases—the VPD took six months or more to request evidence testing from a crime lab and delayed identifying or bringing witnesses in for questioning.
When Jaime Alvarado and his wife, Rocio Alvarado, witnessed Vallejo police shoot and kill Jeremiah Moore while he was naked and unarmed in 2012, Jaime Alvarado said detectives didn't take his statement until many months later.
“Either there is a remarkable amount of incompetence or it’s malicious,” law professor and former Florida police officer Seth Stoughton told ProPublica and Open Vallejo. “Neither should be acceptable.”
Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams, who has served as chief since November 2019, told ProPublica and Open Vallejo a number of administrative changes have been enacted, including a deadline for investigative findings once all relevant evidence has been provided.
“While I cannot comment on critical incidents which occurred prior to my arrival, or on ongoing matters, I can confirm that overall, the VPD continues the process of implementing police reforms,” Williams said in a statement to the news organizations. “All the above changes are designed to create enhanced internal accountability and will provide a more transparent process for our department and the community.”
Williams declined to comment on specific cases.
Former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued a statement announcing a California Department of Justice investigation into the police department in 2020, reportedly at the request of the police chief.
“The allegations concerning destruction of evidence under the watch of the Vallejo Police Department are significant,” Becerra said in the statement. “For public trust to exist, each and every part of our criminal justice system must operate in cohesion and there’s little room for error. That’s why we’ve accepted Chief Williams’ request to take a look at what happened with the evidence and relay our findings to the District Attorney’s Office for review.”
“The bottom line is that law enforcement across the country are rightly coming under the microscope and they have to get these things right if there’s going to be a chance to rebuild trust. Make no mistake: we’re going to be thorough — and that includes in our separate review into the Vallejo Police Department’s policies and practices. Our communities, particularly Black Americans and people of color during this time of social upheaval, deserve to know that we are listening and doing our part to take action.”
That very year, a social media user chronicled the deaths at the hands of Vallejo police, including pictures of some of the victims and a gruesome method Vallejo police officers alleged applied to shooting suspects dubbed the “zipper” method.
Public records The Appeal news nonprofit obtained in 2019 revealed that Vallejo police supervisors applauded officers for using the "zipper drill.” Journalist Darwin BondGraham described the drill: “An officer using this method fires numerous rounds into an adversary, starting low in the target’s body and ‘zipping’ the barrel of the gun up toward the person’s head while continuously shooting.”
As of last May, more than a year after allegations surfaced of Vallejo police destroying evidence, Solano County prosecutors were still playing an unfortunate game of not-it regarding an investigation into the officer-involved shooting death of Sean Monterrosa. The California Department of Justice investigation into the VPD’s policies and practices was still ongoing, and there have been no recent updates.
“Without accountability, there is no justice,” Attorney General Rob Bonta, who succeeded Becerra, said in a news release. “It’s past time Sean Monterrosa’s family, the community, and the people of Vallejo get some answers. They deserve to know where the case stands.”
“Instead, they’ve been met with silence. It’s time for that to change; it’s time for action. Seeing the failure of the District Attorney to fulfill this important responsibility, my office will review the case to ensure a fair, thorough, and transparent process is completed. This is the right thing to do and I will go where the facts lead. Rebuilding trust in our institutions starts with the actions of each and every one of us. If there has been wrongdoing, we will bring it to light.”
The question is when. As of last month, the Vallejo Sun had to resort to what it described as "other means" to access a report the city refused to release regarding the status of Vallejo Police Detective Jarrett Tonn's employment with the city. In the article, Tonn was accused of violating the department's use of force policy when he shot Monterrosa in the head, killing him on June 2, 2020. The report, which followed a mandatory hearing, found that firing Tonn would be "excessive," the Vallejo Sun reported.
It’s a shame that police killing Black and brown people repeatedly in the same city isn’t equally deemed excessive and treated as such.
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