Editorial: Mayor Hypocrite Strikes Again in Antioch

In all their brilliance over the past two years running the City of Antioch into the ground with a series of questionable decisions and spending habits, the city council now believes they are the best people to hire, fire and supervise the Antioch Police Chief.

In a role that typically is reserved for the city manager to oversee the police chief in a General Law City, the Antioch City Council voted 3-2 to change its ordinance where they now have full authority—essentially now politicizing the police chief, its police department and creating no separation.

This is both dangerous and will only create more problems than solutions which will hurt the city over time–and potential lawsuits given the council has no business being involved in privileged information regarding police matters. It must be undone when a new council is seated.

But it gets better, this decision is all in the name of “accountability” per Mayor Lamar Thorpe who is then quick to throw shade on former Mayors Sean Wright, Don Freitas, Jim Davis and as of Tuesday now includes former city councilmember Ralph Hernandez—keep in mind, Hernandez term dates back to 1992-95. Don Frietas was elected in 2000 and Davis is 2008. This is silly!

His Tuesday rant response to Hernandez, Thorpe showed yet again his arrogance and how much of a hypocrite he is:

We are owning our responsibility today to ensure that you as residents have a police department that represents you. That absolutely represents you. So you can come in here and point the finger all you want. I don’ give a damn because the residents in the community have demanded the change that we are making here today if the council continues to go in this direction because for decades residents like you have allowed this council to get away with murder, absolute murder and failed to provide oversight.

I don’t recall any resident requesting the council oversee a police chief or overstep their part-time duties by inserting themselves into police matters considering aside from Councilmember Mike Barbanica (an ex Pittsburg cop) none of them have any experience in law enforcement.  But I do see a hypocrite mayor who is power hungry, has political aspirations for higher office and quick to deflect problems onto others when in reality everything going on right now has everything to do with the sitting city council and has occurred under their watch.

• Monica Wilson – elected in 2012
• Lori Ogorchock – elected in 2014
• Lamar Thorpe – elected in 2016

For Thorpe to blame decades old elected officials for today’s problems is asinine. Thorpe, Wilson and Ogorchock are all on their third term and have been in office when this alleged police abuse has been occurring–they simply did nothing while admitting to “sweeping things under the rug”, the exact opposite of holding people accountable.

Everything, and I do mean everything,  we see in the media today has occurred under their watch. Most people are ignoring this, including the main stream media–or simply given this council a pass out of fear of cancel culture?

L to R – Tammany Brooks, Tony Morefield, Steve Ford and Joseph Vigil

Furthermore, does this joker not realize the current city council in a 2-year period has now gone through 5 city managers, now searching for a 6th, as well as 4 police chiefs and likely will name a 5th as interim before hiring a 6th if they get a permanent chief by the November 2024 election.

Look, people don’t leave jobs, they leave bad leaders and the city council has proven by their actions that no one wants to work under them–take for example the city has over 80 vacancies and multiple department heads have left–one earned a settlement.  When a council such as this talks “accountability”, it’s very hard to take them seriously when under their leadership the council is essentially cycling through two of the most important roles in a city every few months.

Bottom line, this idea of accountability being preached and promised is nothing short than a bad comedy skit–its not going to happen.

I’ve removed the names of the people involved so one can just look at their actions of just who is going to oversee the police chief and police department:

• A mayor who decided to put others lives in danger by drinking and driving
• A mayor who made two women feel so uncomfortable they filed a lawsuit and forced Contra Costa County to pay out a sexual harassment claim of $350k
• A mayor who has text messages with the city clerk linked to an arsonist that the FBI and District Attorney have, but its not being actively investigated. These messages have never been released as APD alleges possible Brown Act Violations and other political crimes.
• A mayor who challenges residents during public comments to go outside and brawl.
• A mayor who cried wolf saying he was assaulted then uses the now terminated city PIO to spread false rhetoric.
• A mayor who votes to erase minutes from a city council meeting to hide his outburst.
• A councilmember who cares so much about safety of others she advocated at one point for sideshows–thankfully she changed her tune.
• A councilmember who at one point believed there was nothing wrong with off-road vehicles on city streets weaving in and out of traffic—prompting a 9-minute anti-police rant.
• A councilmember who has not allowed the release of police body camera footage at her home after a shooting response.
• A city councilmember who attempted to burn down an occupied building.
• The Mayor and a councilmember who just stated in April that the city council has swept things under the rug over the years.
• A council who fumbled over body cameras for years when it could have come as early as 2016—I bet they wish they had them now.

These jokers above are now responsible for the police chief and public safety? You have got to be kidding me! And just to add, Thorpe and Torres-Walker clearly don’t understand the Peace Officer Bill of Rights or they wouldn’t be calling officers murderers or calling for them to be fired.

In any other city in America most people would think it was a bad April fools joke. In Antioch, however, this is the new reality. Perhaps a new normal? Better yet, will Antioch even have the ability to attract a top notch chief? Doubt it. They will likely get an ex-chief fired somewhere else or someone looking to get their feet wet before leaving for greener pastures–either way, its hard to see them attracting top talent. By the way, no offense to potential future candidates.

Thorpe proclaiming a new police department that represents the community and will be held accountable is laughable. As I pointed out in April, it was actually the city council over the years who voted down additional police supervision and transparency, not the police department—the police were the ones actually calling for action because the chiefs knew there were issues or going to be issues, and they were right given the FBI and DA charges.

Now we find out Tuesday, former councilmember and police officer Ralph Hernandez met with Lamar Thorpe at his home and Moncia Wilson (who was put on speaker phone) in June of 2020 to discuss two alleged murders by Antioch Police officers dating back to 2011 and 2012.  Thorpe and Wilson did nothing with the information. How can one talk about accountability and yet they do nothing with this information?

I spoke with Hernandez Wednesday and while he did not provide specifics, officer names or details, he was pretty convincing on painting the overall picture–which I still don’t want to believe after it was looked at by the DA in 2011.

Truthfully after thinking about it, I became blown away of how anything he said could even be true—but I would have never believed the statements made in text messages either by officers. Over the rest of the day, I kept thinking about it and wondered what if it was true. It is a scary thought that perhaps the Antioch Police Department did have a “gang of officers” terrorizing the community.  This could change everything which I don’t even want to imagine the fallout.

Ultimately, I asked Hernandez if anyone had done anything with his investigation since his conversation with Thorpe and Wilson. He  said he met with Councilmember Mike Barbanica a month ago and within an hour the District Attorney was made aware. Although I attempted to see documents and evidence, to preserve the case, no other information was provided.

Barbanica confirmed the conversation and that on July 11 he contacted the District Attorney’s Office to report what Hernandez claimed and by July 12 the Antioch city manager, the city attorney and police chief were all made aware.

He shared he didn’t know if the allegations made by Hernandez were true or false, but they deserved to be looked at and determine if a crime was committed once and for as this dated back to 2011 and 2012. He said he didn’t get to decide what happens next, that was the District Attorney’s job to determine potential actions.

Barbanica is correct, based on what is found by the District Attorney’s office today, it would determine if Hernandez has been telling the truth for a nearly a decade, or if his claims are unfounded–either way, at this point, the community deserves an answer and potential action or no action can be taken.

Which begs the question, if Thorpe and Wilson can’t even report murder allegations to the District Attorney or police chief, how can they supervisor a police department all in the name of “accountability”.  Another question, by not reporting the alleged murder does this make Thorpe and Wilson “an accessory after the fact”?

Furthermore, one has to also wonder why the Contra Costa County District Attorney is focused on police officer civil rights violations, college fraud, obstruction, steroid distribution, and parking violation bribery, but is doing nothing with potential murder involving police officers in 2011 and 2012?  This seems so backwards. Or perhaps, as one person put it, Hernandez claims are nothing more than a “manifesto”.

I’d also be curious when both Thorpe and Wilson admit to “sweeping things under a rug” why the District Attorney does not begin asking questions of what they meant by that, who it protected, what charges may not have been made public and was it a quid pro quo of some sort. I would hope the District Attorney’s Office or FBI would get to this just as fast as they are focused on police officers because maybe it does involved the police department or other illegal activity.

Finally, because I admit to being somewhat petty, Thorpe proclaimed Tuesday:

“I have a right to decide what type of city we need. That is what the residents elected me to do with the highest number of votes in the history of the 41 people who have served this city.”

I would hope a mayor has a higher vote total than decades go given the fact the city has grown by 20,000+ people in the past few decades and when ballot harvesting is made legal–one tends to get more votes that way. Vote totals also fluctuate based on voter turnouts and number of candidates.  Either way, it highlights how full of oneself the mayor is.

According to election results, Thorpe actually had the 4th highest percentage of votes of any mayor since 2000.

• 2004 – Freitas (58% with 18,013 votes)
• 2000 – Freitas (52.3% with 14,879 votes)
• 2008 – Davis (46.26% with 14,912 votes)
• 2020 – Thorpe (44.44% with 19,782 votes)
• 2012 – Harper (40.77% with 12,594 votes)
• 2016 – Wright (34.39% with 11,497 votes))

Also, just to point out, only Councilmember Mike Barbanica was voted into office by a majority of the public within his District, meaning there is no mandate for anyone on the council to claim such nonsense–maybe its time to go to primary elections ensuring each officer holder has a 50%+1 vote from the public. Then we can talk “mandates”.

2022

• Tamisha Torres-Walker – 34.47%
• Monica Wilson – 36.60%

2020

• Lamar Thorpe – 44.4%
• Mike Barbanica – 53.22%
• Lori Ogorchock – 34.30%

Now back to accountability.

If the council was truly serious about accountability, they would simply hire a strong city manager, who in turn hires a strong police chief, give them time to do their job and sort through this mess. If not,  then the council has a chance to hold people accountable.

Its a shame residents who support this move are being duped to believing this council will raise the bar of accountability because everyone should know by now Newtons Law that every action has a reaction and this one is not going to end well for anyone.

If the hypocrite mayor and his council want to preach accountability, perhaps its time they begin to look in their mirror and own their actions and take some responsibility for their behavior and poor judgements instead of deflecting onto everyone else, especially elected officials who served decades ago.

The 2024 election can’t come soon enough to rid the city of a few of these jokers who are nothing more than hypocrites.

Mike Burkholder
Publisher of ContraCosta.news
[email protected]