Whistleblower: Police Officers Celebrated Shooting People With Badge-Bending, BBQs

from the jesus-fucking-christ-can-you-try-not-being-awful-just-for-a-moment dept

There's a lot of competition for Worst Police Force in America. The NYPD is known for its casual approach to human life and its antagonistic approach to public records requesters. The Chicago PD operated its own black site to separate residents from their rights while interrogating them. The Pasco County Sheriff's Department thinks it should be in the business of turning students into criminals. The list goes on and fucking on.

Enter the Vallejo (California) Police Department -- one that has apparently gamified the shooting of residents.

For a generation, a secretive clique within the Vallejo Police Department has commemorated fatal shootings with beers, backyard barbecues, and by bending the points of their badges each time they kill in the line of duty, an investigation by Open Vallejo has found. The custom was so exclusive, some officers involved in fatal shootings were never told of its existence.

First you have to shoot someone. Then the others who are in on this have to determine whether you can be trusted.

Sources say not every officer who kills is invited to participate in the Badge of Honor ritual. The vetting process is stringent, if straightforward. Those who kill meet its first requirement. Those who can be trusted not to talk fulfill the second.

Open Vallejo cites the controversial shooting of Willie McCoy as the impetus for this anonymous whistleblowing. McCoy was shot by Vallejo police officers in a Taco Bell drive-thru, where he had apparently passed out. Restaurant employees called the PD, which sent officers to perform a wellness check. Instead of seeing whether anything was wrong with McCoy, officers surrounded the car and killed McCoy when he awoke and moved one arm towards his shoulder. Vallejo officers fired 55 rounds in less than 3.5 seconds, killing McCoy.

It wasn't the first time Vallejo cops emptied their magazines into someone they were supposed to be arresting or helping. At the tail end of a chase involving an alleged robbery suspect, Vallejo officers shot the suspect -- who was carrying a knife and slowly moving towards them -- 41 times.

According to Open Vallejo's source, one of McCoy's killers -- Officer Ryan McMahon -- got a bend on his "star" for this shooting. This would be his second "bend" in less than a year.

Vallejo police officers love using their guns to solve problems. Even if you doubt the anonymous whistleblower's claims of in-house celebrations for shooting citizens, this statistic is chilling:

At the time of [Captain John] Whitney’s firing, nearly 40% of officers on the force had been in at least one shooting, Open Vallejo research shows. More than a third of those had participated in two or more. The department employs about 100 sworn personnel.

That's well above the 27% of officers who have self-reported firing their weapons in the line of duty. This disparity begs the "chicken or egg" question. Are Vallejo cops violent because there are informal rewards for being violent? Or did this streak of violence lead to the unofficial rewarding of shooting people?

The captain namechecked in this quote was forced out of the department after opening an investigation into the shooting of Willie McCoy. Vallejo's police culture doesn't welcome internal or external scrutiny -- like pretty much every other law enforcement agency in the nation.

Captain Whitney's whistleblowing didn't start there. It wasn't just the Willie McCoy shooting. It was also the blowback from another Vallejo PD failure -- one ignored off by officers and supervisors, including the then-head of the PD.

[Current police union president Mat] Mustard was the lead detective on the 2015 Denise Huskins kidnapping case Vallejo police mistakenly called a hoax.

Whitney says he was in the room when Chief Bidou allegedly instructed Lt. Kenny Park before a now infamous press conference.

"The fact that we've essentially wasted all of these resources for really nothing is upsetting," said Lt. Park during the 2015 presser.

"Chief Bidou told Lt. Park to burn that b****," said Whitney.

Huskins recorded this exclusive statement for ABC7 News: "In their eyes, if you're a woman - you're another "bit**" to burn; if you're a person of color - you're another 'criminal' to kill. It's horrific, and the community of Vallejo deserves better."

That's the mindset of this PD, which has terrorized residents for years under the guise of preserving law and order. This is the way it has always been.

The failure to hold police officers accountable has been an issue in Vallejo for as long as anyone can remember. According to confidential city documents, twenty-five years ago one officer shot another while drinking in a bar, and wasn’t fired. A cop with a drug problem kept his job even after he was caught stealing from evidence lockers and was arrested for prescription fraud. Twenty years ago, a lieutenant told a new officer named Joseph Iacono that, when a suspect runs away, the officer should use enough force to put the man in the emergency room. To see if Iacono could fight, he was placed in a holding cell with an uncoöperative suspect. Iacono is now the department’s Lead Force Options Instructor and, according to the documents, likes to say, “It can’t be awful if it’s lawful.”

The Vallejo PD has cost city residents $16 million in the last ten years. This may not seem like much when compared to the amounts racked up by law enforcement agencies in large cities like Chicago and New York City. But when broken down to a per officer cost, Vallejo takes the lead in costing those paying their salaries the most. And -- despite actions taken by the city's insurer -- police officers continue to make things worse for those that manage to survive their violence.

Police violence has cost the city so much money that, in 2018, the statewide insurance pool that helped pay its legal fees took the unprecedented step of raising Vallejo’s annual deductible, from five hundred thousand dollars to $2.5 million, prompting the city to find another insurer. Vallejo is currently facing at least twenty-four use-of-force cases, which it estimates could cost some fifty million dollars.

Even if Vallejo officers aren't bending their badges in celebration of shooting citizens, they're still shooting citizens far more often than cops in other departments. A lot of whistleblowing has occurred over the years in relation to this department. And so far, it hasn't changed the culture.

The Vallejo PD is out of control. Swapping parts out isn't going to change it. There's a new deputy chief helping preside over Vallejo's squad of uniformed killers but no one should be holding their breath waiting for internal reform. The "new" sub-boss is the same as the old boss: a department rehire. Joseph Kreins presided over the department as chief from 2012-2014. Dusting off someone who failed to control a department for two years doesn't change anything. The city's cops will continue to kill and maim until someone dares to rein them in.

And it appears no one will -- at least not immediately. Between retrofitting a deputy chief and pretending state AG Xavier Becerra -- the same AG who fought a new police accountability law in court -- will get to the bottom of the PD's endemic violence problem, city residents haven't been given anything to hope for. The shootings will continue until law enforcement morale improves.

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Filed Under: california, police, police brutality, shootings, vallejo, violence


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  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Mar 2021 @ 4:10pm

    JFC even the mob knew if you kill them you stop getting paid.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That One Guy (profile), 8 Mar 2021 @ 4:29pm

    And this is why people are 100% done

    Parties to celebrate killings(and honestly I'm actually surprised they tried to keep those hidden, not like any punishments would have been handed out for getting caught), rampant abuse of power and violent acts without any real consequences, re-hiring someone who already failed to hold the department accountable...

    Stories like this just further justify the push to defund the gangs that are US police departments because it's clear that 'reform' isn't going to cut it, they need to be stripped of all power and fired at a minimum and replaced by agencies and groups that aren't worse than the criminals they are supposedly tasked with catching.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    deanathema (profile), 8 Mar 2021 @ 4:45pm

    wooohooooo

    USA #1!!!!!!11

    To be honest though, it is not hard AT ALL to believe this.
    Fucking thugs, cops are disgusting. I guarantee this 'policy' is spread nationwide too in some form.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    thefantodayhtml (profile), 8 Mar 2021 @ 5:17pm

    I wonder if right wing politicians hold celebrations like these too. It would certainly explain a lot about the past year or so.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 8 Mar 2021 @ 6:48pm

    Vallajo police

    "To Serve and Protect...Their Own Interests"

    The sick fuckers involved need to spend a lot of time behind bars.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    kick barry (profile), 9 Mar 2021 @ 1:56am

    I want the society to be stable,

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Curly, 9 Mar 2021 @ 6:17am

    WTGDF

    "fired 55 rounds in less than 3.5 seconds"

    FFS. Missed that story when it first came out.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2021 @ 8:19am

    I recall several movies in which law enforcement was required to meet with head shrinks about the recent life ending action(s) they were involved in and whether said violence has any ill affect(s) upon their mental stability.

    I doubt any such requirement is met, whether it exists or not. Their mental health expert probably joins them in the bbq celebration of ending someone's life.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    restless94110 (profile), 9 Mar 2021 @ 11:50am

    Solutions

    Thank you for this excellent article on policing in Vallejo. Your splendid reporting has convinced me and many others that the only solution for Vallejo is to abolish the police. While this will be the best solution for Vallejo (it will also save 50 million dollars for the city in law suits, too!), it probably is not the solution for every American city with majority black populations.

    After all, I mean, how many times do you have a guy dozing off right at the window at the drive thru in other cities? Like never. And how often do you hear about rhyme-rapping cops rapping about shooting people dead while chowing down at their evil barbeques? Again probably never.

    Another solution might be: issue police badges without points on them. There!! No more bending the points ceremonies in the catacombs underneath the police station.

    Vallejo doesn't really need a police force. And no one wants them there anyway. They are like Portland and many other cities nowadays. Cops: who need them?

    Great article. Keep writing this stuff.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 9 Mar 2021 @ 1:50pm

      Re: Solutions

      You are silly.
      Perhaps law enforcement should be held to the same standard expected from everyone. Indeed, they should be held to the highest standard due to the job description, carrying a weapon and being in danger ... sometimes. But many are not held to any standard at all, other than be the biggest dick possible.

      The city of Vallejo, any city really, needs a competent law abiding official(s) who give a shit about others - not a bunch of murderers who seem to enjoy it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Mar 2021 @ 3:00pm

    FFS

    Great,
    So it is not enough that police go unpunished and immunized for killing their fellow citizens, but now they incentivize and celebrate it as well. I would say that is not a good look for them, but the police seem well past the point of caring how it looks. And for the most part our elected officials and judicial system do not seem to interested in fixing things anytime soon either.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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