In Vallejo, California, a former police captain alleges a secret ritual that has triggered an internal investigation into the city’s embattled police force: He says some officers involved in fatal shootings since 2000 have bent the tips of their star-shaped insignia to dial every time someone was killed in the line of duty.
Former Vallejo police captain John Whitney, a 19-year department veteran and former SWAT commander who was fired from his job last August, first described the alleged tradition in an interview published this week by Open Vallejo. .
According to the unaffiliated news outlet, officers involved in fatal shootings marked those incidents with barbecue in the backyard and were initiated into a “secret clique” that included curving one end of his seven-point sterling silver badge. The outlet said it spoke to more than 20 current and former government officials and reviewed records and hundreds of photographs taken before and after the fatal shooting. Two officers named in the report denied that they had folded the insignia, and one told Open Vallejo that it was “a lie.”
Vallejo, a Bay area community of 122,000 people, has been in the spotlight for its high number of fatal police shootings in recent years, 18 since 2010, compared to other California cities. Last month, the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, announced that the Justice Department will launch an “expansive review” of the Vallejo Police Department after lawsuits demanding excessive force and residents’ demands for an external investigation into the officers’ actions.
Police Chief Shawny Williams, who became the first African American to head the department in November after the retirement of former chief Andrew Bidou, said in a statement to NBC News on Thursday that “celebrating the murder of a human being never It is acceptable”.
“I am deeply disturbed by these allegations,” he said.
According to Open Vallejo, of the 51 current and former Vallejo officers who have been involved in fatal shootings since 2000, at least 14 were dubbed by a colleague afterwards as part of an “exclusive custom” that even some officers involved in the fatal never He said there were shootings.
After he was fired, Whitney filed an amended retaliation claim against the city in March, but did not mention the tradition of folding insignia. Whitney commented through his attorney, Alison Berry Wilkinson, who said he plans to file an unfair termination lawsuit next week that will include what he knew, among other allegations, and described him as a whistleblower.
“We are grateful that Chief Williams has condemned this deeply disturbing practice, but we are skeptical that the evidence could have been destroyed since then, and that gives the officers involved an opportunity to deny the practice with impunity,” he said.
Wilkinson said her client was trying to “speak out against negative culture” within the department, including about the badges, and was expelled as a result.
Police captains have an “at will” job in the department, he said, but he is preparing a lawsuit because Whitney believes he was not given due process and that his “whistleblowing activities” played a role in his departure. forced.
“They certainly set out to belittle him because he stood up for what was right,” Wilkinson said.
The city did not respond to Whitney’s retaliation claim, which she said expressed “her professional views on a variety of misconduct issues with the Police Department.” Whitney said his dismissal was related to an investigation into leaked information and that he was accused of mishandling information. Wilkinson said he was acquitted in the leak case, but Whitney was still fired and told he was related to the deletion of personal data, including family photos, from his work phone.
When Whitney left the department, Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan wrote a letter of recommendation that was also attached to Whitney’s claim. “Frankly, I think that because John talked about a negative culture at the Vallejo Police Department, his reputation was tainted by those who did not want any ‘dirty laundry’ to be broadcast,” the letter says.
A city spokeswoman said Thursday that Sampayan was not available to comment on what Whitney described in her retaliation claim or the tradition of badge folding.
Efforts to contact Bidou, the retired police chief, by phone Thursday and Friday were not immediately successful, and an email was not returned Friday to the Vallejo Police Officers Association. His current employer, Pacific Gas & Electric, declined to make Bidou available, but said in a statement that the company “is aware of these serious allegations, which do not reflect our company’s values or the expectations of our employees.”
In a statement, city manager Greg Nyhoff said Sampayan had alerted him to the “disturbing allegations” last year, prompting him to ask Bidou about the claim to double the badge. The then chief told Nyhoff that he had previously investigated the claim and that “it had not been confirmed,” Nyhoff said.
“The City takes all claims or credible information about possible misconduct seriously,” Nyhoff added. “Chief Williams is currently following past allegations by taking all investigative steps, and will take appropriate and necessary steps based on the information provided.”
Williams said he will conduct an investigation to “help me understand the department’s culture more broadly and take corrective action,” adding that he can open an official investigation “if credible evidence is found.”
“I want our community to know that misconduct will never be tolerated under my administration,” he added.
Wilkinson said Whitney learned of the badge fold in April 2019, two months after the fatal shooting of rapper Willie McCoy, 20. McCoy was asleep in his car at a fast-food restaurant, and workers said they couldn’t wake up. he. Police said they discovered that his car was locked and running, and saw a gun in his lap. While McCoy did not respond, officers on the scene devised a plan to lock his car inside the drive-thru to prevent any erratic movement if he woke up. Ultimately, they saw McCoy on the move, according to the camera video of the incident.
When McCoy woke up, six of the officers opened fire with 55 shots, saying they feared he was holding a gun.
An investigation into the conduct of the officers during the shooting remains open.
Once Whitney found out about the badge flex, “he wanted an investigation to be conducted at that time and he also tried to end that very disturbing practice and be convicted,” Wilkinson said.
Whitney, given her high-ranking position, had ordered the supervisors at the end of a meeting to inspect the insignia and collect the folded ones from their subordinates; 10 were recovered, Wilkinson said.
But according to Whitney, Bidou had the badges returned to officers, whose responsibility it would have been to replace or repair them, Wilkinson said.
“What happened to those badges is unknown to my client,” he said, adding that given the elapsed time, any evidence of the alleged custom of folding badges no longer exists.
Vallejo Police Lt. Michael Nichelini, president of the Vallejo Police Officers Association, called the accusation a “ridiculous notion” and said that any appearance that the insignia were purposely folded is false because “it comes from that way”.
“All of these recent attacks on Vallejo police officers are fabricated lies that fit a narrative that doesn’t exist,” it said in a statement.
Nichelini has been on leave since July 15 in connection with the destruction of a police vehicle windshield that the department was unable to preserve and is considered evidence of a fatal shooting in a 22-year-old man in June. Becerra’s office announced this month that it will open an investigation into the destruction of evidence.
However, his office forwarded comments on the allegations of a badge-folding practice to Vallejo city officials.
Sampayan, who retired from the Vallejo Police Department as a sergeant in 2006, said he recalled an incident during his career when an officer had a corner of his badge folded, but did not know what it represented. He told the Vallejo Times-Herald that after the practice had been brought to the attention of officials more than a year ago, “changes were made.”
“I am not very happy with what it represented,” he said. “To promote and celebrate that you shot someone is absolutely disgusting. There’s no place for that kind of display.”
Kori McCoy, an older brother of Willie McCoy, said he was not shocked by the allegations and confirmed that the police department should be “investigated from top to bottom.”
“We have been saying from day one that Willie was executed,” McCoy said.
