A letter has been released for public view which was sent by Antioch Police Officers Association Attorney Michael L. Rains to the Antioch Mayor City and Council.
The May 19 letter focuses on the police officer texting investigation and recent public statements made by Mayor Lamar Thorpe and Vice Mayor Tamisha Torres-Walker. It also says the text messages were inaccurately and misleading as prepared by Inspector Larry Wallace.
Editors Note – the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office declined this publications public records request for all text message, not the prepared and edited release by Inspect Larry Wallace—estimated at 200+ pages of documents, not the edited and prepackaged 35 pages already released of Antioch Police Officers. They also denied the release of text messages they have from 2021 regarding Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe and City Clerk Ellie Householder.
Here is the letter issued by Attorney Michael L. Rains (or view PDF)
Dear Members of the Antioch City Council:
As you are aware, this Firm serves as General Counsel to the Antioch Police Officers Association (APOA) and all of its individual members. We represent all of the officers who have been recently placed on administrative leave pending an investigation of text messages which occurred between approximately 2019 and 2022 by Antioch police officers which were described and discussed (in many instances inaccurately and in a misleading fashion) in two reports prepared by Contra Costa County District Attorney Inspector Larry Wallace.
Frankly, it’s a tragedy that the City, the Police Department and the public have been “fed” misleading and what we believe highly partisan reports prepared by the District Attorney’s Office for reasons we hope to decern in future litigation, but which have resulted in widespread but underserved condemnation of many police officers for engaging in “racist” or “sexist” texting when no such texting by many such officers, in fact, ever occurred.
By all accounts, the Mayor and Vice Mayor are ecstatic to condemn the entire police department for the “sins of a few” and place themselves in the glare of the public spotlight, which has most recently shined down on both of them proclaiming that all of the officers on administrative leave should be fired and, in essence, the Police Chief should “start over” and hire an entire crop of new recruits to replace the mass of racists and sexist who were formerly employed.
Of course, it is not either unusual or uncharacteristic of either the Mayor or the Vice Mayor to be displaying ignorance or indifference to the law or acting inappropriately, such as the Vice Mayor’s previous profanity – laden, public tirade against the police that, standing alone, should have resulted in her removal from the Council; or the Mayor’s demonstrated disregard of the laws concerning sexual harassment of females and the laws prohibiting drunken driving. In other words, neither the Mayor nor the Vice Mayor are what most would recognize as “role-models” that constituency should rely upon for receiving factual and accurate information or advice.
However, the very pinnacle of irresponsibility on the part of the Mayor and Vice Mayor are their recent synchronized chorus to the public and the media for the Chief to fire all the police officers who have been placed on administrative leave on the text case. Neither the Mayor nor the Vice Mayor truly understand the “facts” of this case, or they would know and explain to the public that the admittedly highly inappropriate texting that they “smear” every officer with was engaged in by only three or four. The officers who are on leave, for the most part, were simply included, without their knowledge at the time, or their wishes in most cases, on “text chains” between 20 and 30 officers which had been in existence for months if not years. In many cases, the officers on the text change were off-duty and asleep when the text occurred and did not even take time to review the content of text messages upon quickly determining that they involved matters of no importance or interest to them.
Perhaps the Mayor and Vice Mayor do, in fact, know the truth – that the texting which essentially the entire department has now been condemned for this is the product of a few. To our knowledge, the Mayor, perhaps in his unholy alliance with the City Attorney, has now excluded the Police Chief from directing the “outside” administrative investigation of the officers on leave. Instead, despite the fact our officers we represent who have been placed on leave without a factual or legal basis, the outside investigators have rejected our request to interview our clients, telling us that they have only gotten authority from “the city” to set dates for interviews of four of the officers on leave.
Thus, before administrative investigation has even determined whether the vast majority of the officers on leave can be subjected to discipline for misconduct, the Mayor and Vice Mayor attempt to incite “mob justice” by calling for immediate mass firing of officers who have done absolutely nothing to deserve discipline. This may further the “spotlight” which the Mayor and Vice Mayor appear to enjoy, but it deprives the citizens of Antioch the services of somewhere near 20 additional police officers who cannot, and will not, under established law regarding employee discipline, be terminated.
We have no doubt that, even if the Mayor and Vice Mayor had even a “passing familiarity” with the law concerning “just cause” for the discipline of public employees (which is clear they do not), they would simply urge the Police Chief, who under City rules and procedures will make the decision concerning discipline of his police officers, to disregard those laws or try to incite the public to condemn the Police Chief if he dared to apply the facts established by a thorough and objective investigation to the existing law, and not impose termination.
By refusing to direct the City’s retained investigators to immediately schedule and conduct interviews of all the officers on administrative leave, while simultaneously condemning those officers publicly and demanding their firing, the Mayor and Vice Mayor have deprived every member of the community of the additional police officer resources available to them to make Antioch a safer community. Instead, the “city’s” very clear disinterest in insisting that all of these officers be interviewed and receiving a report from the retained outside investigator, which will undoubtedly clear most, if not all, of any misconduct, allows the Mayor and Vice Mayor to continue to appear under the spotlight they covet, and sell the public a lie about the facts of this case, hoping, no doubt, that good police officers, tired of being unfairly maligned by these two irresponsible “public servants” will simply quit. It is clear that neither the Mayor or Vice Mayor have any sincere interest in the investigation of all these officers to be completed, and the truth really known.
To the extend that the public, the police department, the media and all of us have been forced to make conclusions of what officers said or meant in text messages, or deprived of the understanding of the context in which text messages occurred or the identity of the person who was the “object” of the texting at the moment, as a result of the misleading and distorted report of DA Inspector Wallace, we have all be fed a “bill of goods” to begin with.
Nevertheless, the irresponsible manner in which the “City” under the direction of Mayor Thorpe and Vice Mayor Torres-Walker have “engineered” an intentionally delay in having officers interviewed in order to be cleared of any wrong doing, while simultaneously calling for their mass termination, is a clear demonstration of their indifference to ethical behavior and their disregard of allowing their highly experienced, knowledgeable and ethical Police Chief to make the decisions he should be making concerning both the work status of his officers and the progress of “outside investigation supposedly underway.
Very truly yours,
Rains Lucia Sterm
St. Phalle & Silver, PC
Michael L Rains
Previous Stories:
- To Read the 14-pages of text Messages: Click Here
- To read the 21-pages of text messages: Click Here
- May 10: Civil Rights Investigation Launched into Antioch Police Department
- May 10: Antioch Police Chief Pledges Full Support With DOJ Investigation
- April 21: Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Antioch Police After Racist Texts and Targeting
- April 21: Antioch Police Union Attorney Issues Statement on Text Messages
- April 19: Antioch City Council Agrees to Move Forward With Police Audits
- 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
13 comments
Dueling public letters will benefit no one.
I saw a lot of deflecting in this letter. The APOA should perhaps find a new attorney to represent their folks.
Anyone paying attention knows without doubt that Thorpe is irresponsible at best. His recent attempts to garner attention are consistent and no different from what we’ve seen in the past.
Dialog thus far has been excessively one sided.
Inflammatory rhetoric from woke members of council may well cause lasting damage to property values.
I believe Mr. Rains has hit the nail on the head with this letter. This attack on our Police Department has been very one-sided and building since Mayor Thorpe took office. He has exhibited his despise for the authority of Police Department by demanding the decommissioning of an important piece of equipment last Friday. He has no clue what he is asking for when he ask to decommission that vehicle.
I suppose if Chief Ford denies his request, he’ll want to fire him. To me Lamar Thorpe is acting like a child who has been given the reins of the classroom and if you don’t do things his way, you will get punished!
This behavior has to stop, punishment of a whole Department for that of a few, is ridiculous. It is effecting our whole city. I would place odds, that a number of these officers a victims of “spam” text from fellow officers, who are responsible for this crap. I believe that we have a good group of officers who have gotten caught up in thos mess while not even paying attention to the messages.
We need to pray for our Department that justice will prevail with a independent investigation by the State or Federal government. That they’ll find fault with the DA’s investigation. I personally don’t trust the DA’S office right now. They have not been doing anything to show themselves worthy of our trust.
This makes no sense that they will release private text message of police officers but two elected officials they will not release text messages? This District Attorney should be just as transparent with Lamar Thorpe and Ellie Householders text messages as they are with police officers.
The mayor and vice mayor does not have anything to do with the racism in Antioch stop trying to push the truth under the rug they all should b fired Antioch been had racism and will continue there has never been black welcome in Antioch so leave the mayor out of this focus on what’s been going on for decades know there caught make them face the consequences for there racial hate 90 percent of Antioch was already mad when they put 2 blacks in office so please stop I hope they get a whole new staff talk about how many black people r in jail for the Antioch police hate talk about how many people they abused talk about the illegal stops made by these officers like always u guys try to sweet it under the rug bt not this time
Do better. Please get Contra Costa County that it needs and deserves to get things in order. An oath has be sworn to protect and serve. We want to live safe and rewarding life’s in our communities. We work hard. So Mayor get it together and find a solution.
A RECALL of Thorpe and Walker are WAY OVER DUE!
Michael Rain’s letter doesn’t mean anything. All it shows me is that he is just another racist hillbilly like most of the hillbillies commenting here. I have a lot of patience for stupid people, but stupid racists I have no tolerance for. Unfortunately, my community has plenty of stupid racists. I have a message for all the hillbilly racists in Antioch: 1.) The African Americans are here to stay. If you don’t like them you know where the highway is. We don’t need you or your stupid comments in this community. 2.) Get used to having African American leaders running our city. The next mayor will be black and I can personally guarantee that because I am going to make sure of it. Hopefully it will get rid of some of you hillbilly racists. I’m with Thorpe, I’m tired of hearing your racist remarks and opinions.
The Mayor and Vice Mayor are doing everything they can to distract and divide our city, in an attempt to subvert attention to their perpetual misdeeds and criminal behavior. They have brought nothing but shame to our city. If we’re going to clean house, lets start at the top. Remove Thorpe and Torres!!!
You don’t speak for all African Americans. There were plenty of responsible, law abiding black community members and still are before those that are criminally inclined poured into the city and I can guarantee you, they don’t support this mayor’s inaction on crime and safety which matters most to a lot of people. As a decades long citizen of Antioch, I’ve seen the decline and sadly witness its further slide everyday. I still remember the welcoming, safe, clean, community oriented city it was when I moved here long ago, not the one you describe. My question is when did Thorpe being black or anyone else become a requisite for being mayor? From where I sit, he needs to go. His divisiveness, lack of cooperation with police (not the bad apples), his inability to hear and address what concerns citizens most, his constant grandstanding, and lack of effective leadership are all reasons my vote will not be going to him. This is not black or white issue for me, it’s about quality of life.
Is this lady a Convicted Felon? Is it True she was in jail for 6 months for Arson? Is she a City council Member? BLM? Is Antioch A Maroon City ?
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