The Vallejo Police in California, has killed more people per arrest than 97% of departments
Inside One of America`s Deadliest Police Departments
At just 22 years old, Sean Monterrosa became the 33rd person killed by the Vallejo Police Department since 2000.
VALLEJO, CALIFORNIA — At just 22 years old, Sean Monterrosa was shot and killed with a silenced assault rifle, fired from the back of an unmarked police car.
That made him the 33rd person killed by the Vallejo, California, police department since 2000.
“It looked like combat footage from Afghanistan,” said John Coyle, an attorney representing the Monterrosa family, referring to body camera footage of the incident.
The Vallejo Police Department, which serves a city of about 125,000 in northern California, has killed more people per arrest than 97% of departments, according to the city`s Police Scorecard, which compares the department to those that serve a similar population size.
And at its peak, the Vallejo PD`s rate of officer-involved shootings that resulted in deaths was about 38 times the national rate, according to an analysis from local news site KQED.
The frequent killings have caused members of the community to lose faith in the department and even question whether they want to call the cops at all.
“There`s been no accountability for the Vallejo Police Department.
The relationship those neighborhoods and the people who live in them have with the Vallejo Police Department is terrible.
It is a relationship of fear and hypervigilance and aggression,” said Nick Filloy, a public defender in Solano County since 2006 who has represented Vallejo residents in cases against the police.
WATCH: Inside One of America`s Deadliest Police Departments
“What would it look like if they had just stopped the car, jumped out and said, `Oh, get on your knees.
Hands behind your head?`” Ashley Monterrosa, Sean`s sister, told VICE News.
The family of Sean Monterrosa is now suing the city of Vallejo—not just for monetary compensation, they say, but to catalyze change within the department.
It hurts to hear my mom when she cries about coming here and knowing that you still live in a place where the state basically murdered your only son,” said Michelle Monterrosa, another one of Sean Monterrosa`s sisters.
“It hurts to hear my mom when she cries about coming here and knowing that you still live in a place where the state basically murdered your only son.”
Tonn is alleged to be part of a group of officers at the Vallejo Police Department who had their badges bent after being involved in a shooting.
The practice is believed to have ended in the year before Monterrosa`s death, but Tonn was involved in three previous shootings.
The Vallejo Police Officers` Association claimed, in a letter obtained by the Vallejo Times-Herald, that the practice was not meant to mark each killing but rather to honor an officer surviving a shooting, regardless of whether it was fatal.
“My sergeant, after my first officer-involved shooting, said wouldn`t it be nice if you could look around and see a visual indicator of people you can trust in a moment of chaos?
And then he took my badge, and he bent it,” Joshua Coleman, a former officer who worked at the department for ten years, told VICE News.
The death of a Vallejo officer on duty in November 2011, James Capoot, was a major blow to the department`s morale, which had already been low due to the department going bankrupt in 2008, leading to the size of its police force being cut in half.
When are we going to focus on what is going on in our communities who are raised to believe that it`s normal for your family members to get murdered and it`s normal to carry a firearm, and it`s normal to have an adversarial relationship with the police?”
To help officers cope in the wake of a shooting, former Lt. Kent Tribble, a use-of-force expert and training instructor at the department, started the badge-bending practice in 2003.
And in that moment, after that shooting, I felt validated,” Coleman said.
And in that moment, after that shooting, I felt validated.”
After growing criticism, the Vallejo police chief launched an independent third-party investigation into the practice of badge-bending in July 2020.
SOURCE
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxnkw5/california-vallejo-police-department
