On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council provided direction to staff to move forward on multiple audit of the Antioch Police Department and within the City of Antioch.
The three-hour special meeting tackled the idea of Antioch Police Department internal affairs process, the departments hiring and promotional processes and practices, and an equity audit of not only the Antioch Police Department, but the entire city of Antioch.
Protester on April 18 in front of Antioch Police Department.
Prior to the meeting, approximently 150 people held a protest in front of the Antioch Police Department demanding action be taken immediately. They then marched from the Antioch Police Department to city hall. The protesters say racism does not belong in the community or public service and had a list of 12-items they wanted addressed—which they call demands.
The effort includes a list of demands which read as follows:
- Fire and decertify officers involved in abusive behavior.
- Accountability. No pension, investigation of hate crimes by APD conspiracy to cover up and to commit hate crimes. All settlements should come from the APD/APOA (Antioch Police Officers Association) budget.
- Prosecution for all civil rights violations.
- Restructuring regulations for the Police Officers Association.
- Full Audit of Internal Affairs.
- Mandate bias training, if it exists then strengthen it.
- Mandate Mental health services for APD at an appropriate timeline let the professionals decide that timeline for new and existing officers. (after certain events) Excessive use of force, officer involved shootings, and etc…
- The 45 officers involved who hold leadership positions need to be investigated as well and we need to pause all criminal filings pertaining to the officers.
- Anti-harassment policies to ensure protections for marginalized communities historically targeted.
- Reopen cases with officers involved in custody deaths.
- Investigation of hate crimes and conspiracies.
- Charge ALL involved with RICO Act & domestic terrorism.
The following are recaps from City Council Comments on each item:
AUDIT OF THE ANTIOCH POLICE DEPARTMENT’S INTERNAL AFFAIRS PROCESS
Councilmember Mike Barbanica explained his phone has not stopped ringing and what he has heard over and over is “I feel betrayed” and “that is the theme of the conversation” he continues to have and how when he was in the academy he remembered the class that said “the badge you put on is a symbol of public trust” and people who don’t feel like they can trust the police department. He said he would support the items tonight.
Councilmember Lori Ogorchock attempted to speak, was interrupted, stated she would support the item.
Councilmember Monica Wilson read her statement to ensure she said everything she was thinking. She explained that they were going to correct while noting the text messages were only a symptom of a larger disease.
“Tonight, I am angry too. I am angry, astonished, shocked and saddened. I am angry because for generations residents in our community have felt marginalized and even scared by the city’s police department. Angry because our city’s police chiefs and police officers union allowed a culture of racism to develop within the halls of the institution that exists to protect our city.
As a human being, regardless of your political alignment or what party you belong with, what is happening at the Antioch Police Department should make you angry. The thing about anger, you can choose to stay angry or you can choose to do something. Beyond being a member of this council, a resident of this community, I choose to stand up against racism and do the heavy lifting of building a police force that we can actually trust.
To Chief Ford, I want you to understand that magnitude of this moment. This moment is not about anti-racism classes within your department, a two-hour class wont suffice. This moment is not about community engagement unit showing up at community meetings. The community doesn’t want a dog and pony show anymore. This moment is not about well scripted letters that say all the right things but only fool the writer that wrote them because we can all see right through them. This moment is about the elimination of members of the Antioch Police Department. Some of which may even be part of your inner circle….
(she continued)…
She again referenced the text messages are a symptom of a larger disease.
(she continued)…
For you to do this work effectively, I need to hear you state on the record you are prepared to terminate anyone found to have committed the crime of betraying the public trust to this racist behavior. I need you to tell this council tonight you are committed to eliminated anyone within the Antioch Police Department regardless of rank and clout. Can you make that commitment to us chief Ford. And please no hiding behind words like process and investigation. These text were analyzed by the FBI, DA and a judge who felt they were so bad, that the judge released the names of the officers In the full text. So Chief Ford, can you explicitly make that commitment to what I just asked.”
Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker stated she supported this audit but has seen these processes and procedures take place noting it could take 6-months to a year before anything happens.
“I am not here for symbolism or to grandstand. This audit could lead nowhere or possibly lead to somewhere in six-months to a year or more. The real question is what do now?” stated Torres-Walker. “I support this item but what do we do right now.”
Mayor Lamar Thorpe heard consensus on the item but agreed with Torres-Walker that it could take 6-months to a year because the process takes a long time but was appreciative of the unified voice on this.
He explained this text message issue just happened and they were dealing with it as best they could and in a way to ensure the community voice is captured in the decisions being made even though it can be frustrating, angering and everyone has a right to be angry.
Thorpe continued telling city staff it was their audit and on their timelines. Direction has been given and its clear.
Torres-Walker interjected saying that the public has said its their audit and their were instances where an applicant to do this audit, there can be a group of residents put together to review applications and choose the institution that does the audit.
“If it really is the peoples audit, the people should choose the auditor,” stated Torres-Walker.
AUDIT OF THE ANTIOCH POLICE DEPARTMENT’S HIRING AND PROMOTIONAL PRACTICES
Thorpe stated they needed an independent look at what the hiring processes are and what goes into the determination of promotions in this city because the city council didn’t know—noting this one was clear as day.
Councilmember Barbanica questioned how they have not had officer evaluations for over 6-years.
“How do you promote? How do you terminate? How do you determine who is going to make probation or not make probation? I don’t understand that,” stated Barbanica. “That concerns me. How do we go 6-years without an evaluation of police officers.”
Barbanica stated he believed he would get calls from people accusing him of not supporting fellow officers.
“I am supporting the institution of police work, not somebody doing something right or wrong. I am not making a judgement on that, there will be another panel where judgement can be made on that. I am talking overall, you can be a supporter of law enforcement but should be for holding law enforcement accountable. That is where I stand with this, I support it.”
Councilmember Ogorchock supported the item and begin going through a proper process.
Councilmember Wilson stated she supported the item and needed processes in place—urged for external help to come up with policies.
Mayor Pro Tem Torres-Walker stated there was already a process and practices which just haven’t been beneficial to the community.
“The practice and the process has been to look the other way. New practices, processes and procedures are necessary,” explained Torres-Walked who stated, “its like watching the first 48 but at the end the murder gives a confession but then the murderer gets a promotion and a raise.
She also shared a conversation with Chief Brooks about Michael Mellone and if he had remorse for what he did.
“Chief Brooks said he absolutely had remorse for what he did and his family has not been able to recover since. So I said why can’t he apologize or acknowledge harm was done. He said because apologizing and a simple apology is a simple admission of guilt,” shared Torres-Walker. “So you can’t apologize for turning the other way, not having proper policies and procedures, and hopefully we don’t have too short of memories because this city didn’t start to do anything until two-years ago about this because there has not been evaluations for five or six years.”
She stated that when they hire people who have lived in the community that they needed to make sure they didn’t have 50- to 100-year-old ideologies that they had been raised with in their homes.
“People of color in policing, anti-blackness exists. So just turning a police department black and brown isn’t going to solve your issue,” said Torres-Walker who shared she did trust Chief Ford.
She called for officers to take a long vacation on the beach with no pay and not coming back.
Mayor Thorpe stated he was for this and the mental health crisis response will be up soon—the first in Contra Costa County to do so. Thorpe also stated in the last two years, crime was down and the lowest point its been between 2013-2020. NOTE: Recent report by Chief Ford shows Part 1 Crime up 9.5%.
Torres-Walker stated there are some neighborhoods where crime is always up, such as Sycamore, Cavallo, Delta Fair and downtown Antioch.
“Data absent context is dangerous, crime is down overall but in these neighborhoods its up everyday.” says Torres-Walker. “These people and community members need help, absolutely, not just from the police department. But from the crisis response teams, non-profits and community members because they are feeling this. They were feeling this before we had low staffing levels at the police department and you better believe they are feeling it now.”
EQUITY AUDIT OF THE ANTIOCH POLICE DEPARTMENT
Prior to getting into this topic, two definitions of this were provided by City Manager Forrest Ebbs and Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker.
“A cultural audit is a term used out there in audit. A meaningful, intentional, assessment evaluation to have a thorough understanding of what you are looking at. A cultural audit is a deeper understanding of the culture in an organization. It usually does not pursue personnel action, that is not the goal, its try to get a meaningful understanding of what motivates. What are the conversations, what is the tolerances? We don’t have a full understanding of that. I do believe this can be a meaningful tool to have a better understanding. Once you have an understanding, you can see what you have and if you are okay with it. If you are not, the next step is to figure out how you can correct that. Cultural audits are different than practice or policy. They are not really after what is written down or adopted or posted, but what are the motivating factors, what are the heart and soul of an organization. That summarizes my impression of a cultural audit,” stated Ebbs.
Meanwhile, Torres-Walker gave her meaning.
“When I requested an audit of the entire city’s practices, policies, procedures, hiring, in addition to a human rights and equity commission, is because when you live somewhere as old as Antioch, there has to be a policy somewhere where black and brown people are not supposed to be or exist or there is a practice that is not policy and its unspoken that you do not hire these kinds of people or you don’t promote these kinds of people or individuals. Or, in a way, when you have a policy, practices or procedures and they only leverage to intimidate a certain population.”
She highlighted, for example, code enforcement could be used to target certain communities while leaving others alone.
“The audit I was requesting would look at the disparity and see services and see who is being served and who is not, hiring, and etc. I think starting with the police department is absolutely, the lowest hanging fruit, we can start there,” stated Torres-Walker. “Somebody asked me about equity, its really about being fair and partial. When you ask for an equity audit, yes the culture of the police department, is everything fair and partial across the board, not just the culture of the department. How the department responds to the community, but also the hiring, around gender, race, and a lot of other things that could be baked into an equity audit.”
She encouraged the council to get a lot more specific to what they would be looking at.
Thorpe highlighted they could also get into data such as arrests, engagements with the public and possibly could get a Request for Qualifications to get a number of firms who specialize in these types of audits with police departments.
After public comments, the council shared their thoughts.
Councilmember Barbanica stated he would continue to support the institution of policing.
“I absolutely support the institution of policing, what is our choice? Anarchy out there? Of course, but I am not supporting bad cops, I am saying the institution of a group of men and women who come to work everyday to do their best to keep criminals away from good people. I am not talking about misconduct,” said Barbanica.
Councilmembers Mike Barbanica and Tamisha Torres-Walker
He then addressed comments by resident Patricia Granados who has read excerpts multiple times from an article.
“What you are talking about here is an investigation that I conducted where a police officer was targeting Hispanic and African American members of a community and I went back 12-years and show the false arrests. That person was prosecuted,” stated Barbanica. “I am very proud I stepped up and did that. And I know you love to bring that up, I finally said I am talking about this. In addition to that, 2 cops for murders, 1 cop for DUI, 1 for child molest, 1 for stealing evidence, 1 for beating a wife, the list goes on. It’s not something I am proud of and I go out and talk about, but these were the bad cops that we removed from the agency and made sure they were never cops again and they got prosecuted. I appreciate we finally are talking about that tonight because the last two years I’ve heard you bring it up, I spoke with the city attorney, the city attorney says the Brown Act allows you to speak on that.”
Barbanica admitted he wasn’t sure what the agenda item was going to be tonight and thanked the mayor for allowing the clarification.
“I do support this. I also support the good strong men and woman out there still working to protect you and the community. I don’t want to lose sight; we are not talking about every single cop here. We are talking about a situation that we are dealing with… I don’t want to interfere with that investigation, but I do support the men and women who come to work everyday to make sure you have a safe city. I hope we don’t lose sight of that. That we are not talking about everybody in police work. I do support item three.”
Councilmember Ogorchock also thanked the explanation of equity which helped with the decision I personally make.
“Its important to understand what we are voting on. If don’t have a clear understanding of it then we can’t vote appropriately. Promotion should be based on work product. Not anything else. We talked about community hiring, maybe that should be something we look at with certain individuals participating in the hiring process,” stated Ogorchock who noted the police chief is doing the 30×30 program (30 women by 2030). “That is a big thing. Women are not filling these spots, why are they not filling these spots, is it because we are not asking them to fill the spots? I think the chief is making a concerted effort to see some of these wrongs and correct some of these wrongs.”
Ogorchock stated she was for this and agreed it should be citywide while starting at the police department. She said with the investigation going on with officers, she trusted the chief will take action.
Councilmember Wilson supported the item. She agreed it needed to start in the police department and it needed to go citywide with the community involved while was still unsure if this should be an RFQ or RFP process.
Wilson then did a rapid fire with Chief Ford which the city attorney tried to stop, however, Thorpe interjected saying these were police topics and general enough that does fit under the topic.
Mayor Pro Tem Torres-Walker was in favor.
“I want to do an audit of the whole damn city so obviously I support an audit of the police department,” stated Torres-Walker who explained people have to know what you are asking for because when they request data, it could man different things and urged them to be more specific.
“What kind of data do we want? Do we want arresting data, data on detainment, data on charging, do we want data on cite and release? Do we want data on release records,” stated Torres-Walker adding in custody deaths, citizen complaints to everything.
“We should do a budget audit of the city and look at the hundreds of millions of dollars paid out in settlements for violating residents’ citizens’ rights and use of force,” Torres-Walker said. “We can then know where that money came from and how it was spent so we can understand the cost of doing business when you have policing services that are inequitable in nature.”
She then offered a response to Barbanica on his commentary of a good officer versus a bad officer.
“This idea about a good officer versus a bad officer, a good guy versus a bad guy. We’re not in the wild, wild west. It’s just a human being, being a human being. That’s it. Good versus bad, that doesn’t really exist. It’s what is in your heart. Being human you might make mistakes, it could change your life forever, forever! Especially if it is intentionally,” explained Torres-Walker. “I am not called for service, I didn’t say I was going to carry a gun and run up on people houses and arrest people, but the people who had the authority to do that should know better. The fact these folks knew better, they did… its not good or bad, its just how you treat people when you are doing your job in the community. That is what is important.”
She stated they needed to have some compatibility, transparency, and compassion for people who have had similar experiences when we know we have been held accountable for the actions of others even though we had nothing to do with the situation at hand.
She also spoke on the idea of “criminals”.
“Everybody knows how I feel about language. When you say like keeping the community safe from criminals and the people who are supposed to keep the community safe are committing criminal activity, then we have a problem,” stated Torres-Walker.
She also highlighted how it’s criminal for legislators who take from the community but fail to pass gun control to make communities safer. She suggested all elected officials should be held accountable.
Thorpe stated he suggested an RFQ and not RFP saying they could narrow it down once they know what a consultant can do.
“I prefer to tell people what I want,” responded Torres-Walker.
“People say, oh Mayor Thorpe controls both of them. As you can see that is not the case. I don’t control any black women by any stretch of the imagination,” stated Thorpe with a laugh.
City Manager Forrest Ebbs offered he work with the city attorney on a roadmap saying he had to consult with people who have gone down this road before staff can come back on an informed decision on an RFP vs. RFQ process.
The council agreed to that direction.
Full City Council Agenda – click here
Previous Stories:
- April 17: Second DA Report Leaked Includes Antioch Police Text Messages
- April 13: Contra Costa DA Releases Antioch Police Text Messages
- April 13: Antioch Police Chief Statement on Inappropriate Text Messages
- April 9: Mayor Calls For Audit After Antioch Officers Sent Racists Text
- April 7: Becton Issues Statement on Disclosure of Racist Texts in Felony Case
- March 31: Antioch POA and Attorney Mike Rains Respond to Antioch Mayor
- March 30: Antioch Police Chief Issues Open Letter to Community
- March 30: Antioch Mayor Holds Press Conference on New Police Investigation
5 comments
Antioch should shut down the PD. Make it a contract city with the Sheriff and make all the current Antioch officers go through the sheriff hiring process if they want to stay.
Its funny that the corrupt city council with convicted criminals seated on it is calling for accountability !!, they cant even hold themselves accountable. a mayor that has committed criminal acts and is a serial sexual harrasser , torrezfelonwalker who is a convicted criminal with a known disdain for the police and criminals in her family. It’s laughable!!
Clowns !!
This is just too crazy for me and very sad. This makes me sad for our residents, our city employees and anyone impacted by the officers. But I do not think the council should be placing itself as the moral police. They are just as bad. I do not trust them to get this right because they will over compensate corrective actions and then we are now better off than we are today.
Monica Wilson may be the biggest hypocrite of all. For a decade she has said and done nothing, yet last night she speaks up asking the police chief several questions on firing officers knowing darn well he cannot answer them. She was grandstanding. I question if she even wrote that or if Lamar handed her the statement to read.
No excuse for these text messages. No excuse for the behavior. But has anyone ever thought to think if Tamisha can burn down an apartment complex and get elected, maybe these officers can one day serve on a city council. If we ask the officers what was going through their heads, can we ask Tamisha what was going through hers?
Lamar pretends to take the high road, he is the biggest problem of everyone. What was going through his head when he was sexually harassing women? Or had one too many drinks before driving? Maybe an officer can get a DUI and harass woman and also serve as mayor of a city.
I am not going to justify the racist text messages but like it or not, racist speech is protected and not illegal just as burning the flag. We certainly do not have to like it or accept it, but its fact. Its the officers who abused the badge we need to fire and possibly arrest. What is worse? Horrific speech or arson, DUI, sexual assault and in the case of the defendants murder?
At this point, remove the city council and rebuild the police department from scratch under chief ford and a few of the solid officers who will remain. Or, contract out with the sheriff.
Glad the audit is happening, but getting sick and tired of the political antics. The audit should have been done months ago, but city officials tried to sweep the issues under the rug. The mayor and city council members have known APD was under investigation by the FBI, but now that the text messages have been leaked, they want to take action by doing an audit. This is poor leadership. As a leader, how can you be okay with the FBI conducting a criminal investigation of your police officers but not conduct an investigation or audit of your own? Mayor Thorpe met with the DA months ago and was briefed on the DA and FBI investigation. Mayor Thorpe still chose not to take action until the cat was already out of the bag. Failure of leadership is why Antioch has and will continue to suffer. This is why we are losing the Amtrak station. The same leadership failure.
The irony in this investigation is the DA Investigating this is Larry Wallace. He was the head of security for Kamala Harris. He was a serial sexual harasser and the tax payers paid of hundreds of thousands to his victims.
Now he is working for the corrupt DA Becton.
Wallace is even more corrupt than those he’s reporting.
Google it
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