For years civil rights attorney John Burris has been trying to get the California Attorney General’s office to investigate the Vallejo Police Department—which has seen an unusually large number of officer-involved shootings in recent years. It took another egregious shooting on Tuesday, involving 22-year-old Sean Monterossa, and the fallout of George Floyd’s death to finally spawn action.
On Friday, AG Xavier Becerra, the City of Vallejo, and the Vallejo Police Department agreed to collaborate on a comprehensive policing plan in an effort to modernize and reform VPD’s policies and practices and increase public trust.
According to the announcement, “The review will aim to support effective policing through improvements in use-of-force procedures, anti-bias and community policing, and accountability by focusing on training, policy, and transparency in alignment with national standards, best practices, current and emerging research and community expectations.”
“Our communities are safer when our police departments can build public trust through good policies, practices, and training. This review and reform agreement we announce today with the City of Vallejo represents a critical step the Vallejo Police Department must take to build trust with people who have lost faith in them,” said Attorney General Becerra.
Police say they believed Sean Monterrosa had a gun, but instead it was a hammer—and the police chief acknowledged he had knelt and raised his hands to chest level. But the action revealed a hammer tucked into his sweatshirt pocket and the officer assumed it was the butt of a handgun and opened fire through his own windshield.
John Burris, who has been retained by the Shawn Monterossa’s family, said he disputed that Monterossa posed a threat. “It’s a pretty outrageous shooting,” Burris said Wednesday. “The officer’s life was not in danger.”
Burris said that he believes Monterossa was in the process of surrendering and that “there was a reckless disregard for this kid’s life because there was tension in the air.
“It appears that Shawn Monterossa had essentially surrendered,” Burris said. “He went down voluntarily to his knees and was in the process of putting his hands up when the officer saw what he said appeared to be a gun and shot him. The officer was not out of the car, Shawn was not chasing him, not threatening him.
“Looting is not a justification for the use of deadly force,” he added. “It’s just property.”
John Burris told the Vanguard that this is “an historical moment,” which he said, “is brought about by the consequence of what has taken place.
“I have been dealing with this AG’s office now for several years trying to get them to focus in on Vallejo… and no response,” he said.
But “another shooting takes place” and “for whatever reason they decided this was the time to get involved” and, while he realizes it is political, “nevertheless it is important that the move has taken place.”
Burris said he was not sure specifically what this entails other than it “is an expansive review of department practices,” where they will be looking for “any pattern or practice of unconstitutional violations.
“That’s a broad term but that’s the language we use when we look at pattern and practice cases,” he said, where they look to see if there is any ratification of misconduct, whether or not the use of force is consistently within the constitution, whether traffic stops are handled consistently, and whether the department’s policies are up to date.
The “pattern and practice” is the term of art for the US Department of Justice’s chief tool for accomplishing police reform—determining whether the department in engaging in a systemic violations of the constitution in their policing with regard to use of force, traffic stops and other police misconduct.
But under the Trump administration, they ended federal consent decrees and stopped many of their pattern and practice investigations a few years ago.
“The feds are not looking at these cases,” Burris said. “We had cases pending that they were looking at and they just dropped it completely.
“This is certainly an example of filling a void that typically would go to the feds,” he said. “The AG’s office is not the place looking to determine pattern and practice for the most part.”
He believes that they probably lack the expertise in house and will probably have to go to an outside consultant to do this work.
“I don’t think they have the skill that’s required,” he said.
In their release, the AG’s office indicated that the agreement “comes in light of several recent high-profile VPD officer-involved shootings.”
They note: “The number and nature of the incidents raised concerns among members of the community and the California Department of Justice (Cal DOJ).”
Attorney General Becerra said, “When our communities speak up, we must listen—and, in recent days, people across California and the nation, and in Vallejo have bravely come together to make their voices heard. This is only a first step in our broader fight for racial justice. We must all do our part, and we must do it now.”
“I have long stated that we know not all the best ideas are in Vallejo, and our Council welcomes the involvement of the California Department of Justice in helping us implement better police practices in Vallejo,” said Vallejo City Manager Greg Nyhoff.
He added, “Our officers share our Council’s mission to keep our community safe and reflect the best of policing. We believe that collaboration with the DOJ and implementation of the suggestions from our recently completed external audits are an important step for everyone.”
“The City of Vallejo had launched a series of reform projects before I arrived in Vallejo that evidenced their desire to improve. It is one reason I was attracted to the role of Chief,” said Vallejo Chief of Police Shawny Williams.
He continued, “As Chief, I have already implemented a stronger body-worn camera policy, an improved de-escalation policy, and a program to regularly analyze use-of-force data, but the biggest steps are ahead of us. I welcome all voices to the table. We are stronger together.”
Senator Bill Dodd appreciates the AG’s office reviewing the Vallejo Police.
He said, “From use of force, to elimination of bias and improving training, it’s critical that we have an outside review.”
Senator Dodd added: “That’s a positive step, but there’s much more we need to do. This week, there was yet another fatal police shooting in Vallejo—another tragic loss of life. My thoughts are with Sean Monterrosa’s loved ones. They, and the Vallejo community, deserve a clear understanding of the events that led to this shooting, which is why I am calling for an independent investigation. Justice must be served. We have seen too many families grieving senseless killings of African Americans and people of color by law enforcement. This must stop.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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I’m really glad to see this article. Vallejo has had so many incidents like this. There is clearly something not right there. But,
Seems like what they say every time. I can see why some protestors are calling for a complete overhaul of the system. If I had a loved-one shot unjustifiably and read the above government statement about “reform”, again, I’d be pretty disgusted.
I was wondering when this shooting was going to come to a broader light. The first thing I noticed in the initial headlines is none of them said “black” person shot, and I wasn’t hearing a lot of initial outrage. I found it was a person of Latin descent (I feel like I have to look up to see if a 5000-ton bank vault is coming down on me if I use the wrong term-of-today), and I couldn’t help but think if the headline said ‘black’ the Bay protests would have flared up into a rage. But why should it matter – isn’t it more about police conduct then who the victim is?
Black, Latino, Jew, Frog, Horse . . .
Dead is dead. Grieving family is grieving family . . . not to ignore the disparities and racial issues . . . those are real . . . but why less outright outrage when the headline didn’t announce it was a black person?
I know that often more facts come out later. But from everything I’ve read, this shooting appears completely unjustified.
Vallejo is a rough place. I had a contract job there years ago that had me spending time in every neighborhood. There were odd lines in some places . . . there would be a new, mostly white neighborhood with manicured lawns, and right over a fence-line would be an old suburb of mostly people-of-color, clearly with much, much less money, right up next to each other. The contrast was stark.
Yet, it isn’t Oakland or San Francisco or Richmond or San Jose. The number of incidents of this sort in Vallejo seems way out of proportion. And if a place ever needed a real tearing-down of its police force and maybe a place to try out one of these ‘alternative approaches’ protestors are suggesting, perhaps this would be a good testing ground. It couldn’t be much worse than what they have.
A couple of points in response to a good comment by Alan Miller. I think the racial factor matters in terms of disproportionate policing and whether it is a civil rights issues that some are more targeted than others. Clearly you can see the response to the Floyd situation.
In terms of what this means, I think your point is spot on – the AG’s office hasn’t really done this before. This was strictly the purview of the US DOJ but the Trump administration has stopped pattern and practice investigations. Burris doesn’t know what this will entail and thinks the AGs office won’t be able to do it in house.
So I think I side with — it’s good that this is happening, but not sure what it will result in.
I think the racial factor matters in terms of disproportionate policing and whether it is a civil rights issues that some are more targeted than others.
Probably true.
Could it be due to this?
Here is the problem: there are some crimes that African Americans commit disproportionately. But they don’t commit all crimes disproportionately. For example – drugs – blacks and whites use drugs and deal drugs at similar rates. And yet, the vast proportion of those arrest, prosecuted and incarcerated are black. That focus leads to encounters between police and blacks that are out of proportion with their percentage of the population.
No cite. Might be true… might not… expect the poor (and disheartened), or feel marginalized, be they white, black, brown, whatever, to more likely seek refuge in drugs… be it alcohol, meth, ‘coke’, etc. Either for money, or ‘relief’ from their ‘pain’… logically, sometimes both… as I recall, liquor stores and electronics stores had far the greatest looting in Ferguson and elsewhere… had nothing much to do with the serious protesters, who were mostly acting on moral, not immoral personal standards… the looters/vandals were a different ‘breed’… ghouls… opportunists… criminals…
The looters/vandals were/are definitely ‘diverse’… except that they all engaged in criminal activity… definitely across the board as to the racial lines some folk like to draw… the ‘real’ protesters were acting out ‘values’ … ostensibly moral ones… in a Venn diagram view, was there an overlap? Probably, but very small %-ages, #’s.
This is pretty thorough: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jul/13/van-jones/van-jones-claim-drug-use-imprisonment-rates-blacks/
You can also listen to my podcast with Nazgol Ghandnoosh from the Sentencing Project (cited in the Politifact article) from earlier this year where we discuss this at length.
“victim reports don’t support the idea that this is because of mass discrimination.”
I am not sure that “victim reports” should be used as a measure of whether or not there is mass racial discrimination. By definition, victim reports are subjective accounts of single events. In some cases, the victim will attempt objectivity and try to get things right.
But there are certainly cases in which this is not true. Emmett Till is one resounding case from the past. The black bird watcher in Central Park is a more current case.
Yeah… 65 years in the past… why not go back to Crispus Attucks, 1770 (only 250 years in the past)… would be more on point. Killed cold-bloodily by ‘the authorities’, for participating in a mostly peaceful demonstration against taxes (along with 4 others killed, 6 injured.) Supposedly started by the throwing of a snowball @ “the cops” (highly trained, British ‘regulars’)… that would be more on point.
As to being on point,
Sound familiar? Nothing new under the sun… hopefully, the four charged in MN will have more stringent sanctions… note that a future president, whose party morphed to Republican (after morphing thru Whigs) got them off… sound familiar? I sniff ‘presidential pardons’ in the air if the 4 officers are convicted of either 2nd degree murder, and/or aiding abetting that crime… we’ll see…
I couldn’t edit the comment in time, but here’s the source for the comment above (first one I came across):
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime
Actually, the sentence in my first comment above is a quote from David. (I also couldn’t fix that in time, as the editing period was immediately cut-off.)
Most of the places where the mighty Soros-funded campus-trained anarchists in the media write their stories about bad cops are rough places. That point is conveniently left out by the professional critics of the police… critics that tend to live in exclusive safe and white neighborhoods.
Too bad these reporters do not turn their pens to all the bad teachers in these rough places. Better teachers would lead to fewer problem people for the police to deal with.
Also, we need to stop allowing the sentimentalization of events by the media to cause a reaction that ignores the actual data. The number of unarmed police shootings is way down since Obama was in office. And so are the number of cop-black deaths. So is the number of complaints against the cops when controlled for the reporting changes that the Obama administration put into practice conveniently around 2017.
Frankly, this renewed media fest on law enforcement seems a well coordinated political move given the real data. Seems there are plenty of useful fools to consume their fake news feeds and believe it to be so.
I don’t know what this means. Please explain.
Ha! I almost called that one out too . . . just a string of words to my ear.
According to the article I posted above, the cause of this is not entirely due to “disproportionate policing”.
There’s a level of dishonesty regarding this entire topic, which extends well-beyond the Vanguard.
“we need to stop allowing the sentimentalization of events by the media”
No we need to stop letting militarized cops run the streets unfettered by the Constitution.
This is frankly inaccurate and seems politically motivated.
I urge everyone to start digging into the reporting on the crime levels in urban black neighborhoods compared to everywhere else. The first thing you should note is the astounding level of effort being waged to keep the facts from being understood and replaced by a large body of work that is generally propaganda for a left worldview.
Here is the reason.
If the Democrats lose the black vote, they are toast.
But the facts are the facts, and crime in the black urban neighborhoods started to increase again under the Obama administration’s last few years. Crime is already astronomically higher in these poor black neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods. Blacks commit crime at a much, much higher rate than do other demographic groups.
Here is a well-balanced article on the topic. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime
Key points:
The really sad thing here is that highly educated and upper-middle class whites living in generally safe white neighborhoods that are primarily responsible for this movement to destroy law enforcement under the disingenuous Black Lives Matter banner, will end up causing many more blacks to be victims of crime. The majority of crime in the black neighborhoods victimized other blacks. We need police reforms, but in these neighborhoods, we need more police funding not less.
JB, I don’t disagree with all of your conclusions (not getting into which, how much or why . . . ‘value my time’, ha, ha . . . ), but seriously — where do you get the idea that “highly educated and upper-middle class whites living in generally safe white neighborhoods [snip] are primarily responsible for this movement to destroy law enforcement under the disingenuous Black Lives Matter banner” ??? I think that really talks down at the people-of-color that support this movement, and I know many. While I have plenty of issues with the politics of BLM, the incidents and issues that drive this movement are quite real and do need to be addressed — and I don’t see ‘upper middle class whites’ driving this, I see it driven at the grass-roots level.
Adding to Alan’s well stated point, my observation is that upper middle class liberals were actually fairly slow to get on this train and it’s only been in the last five years and you could even argue only really this year that they are firmly on board. When I first started working on the issue of police reform in 2006, I was stunned by how many white liberals in places like Davis were in denial about racism and police misconduct. That’s changed, but they certainly have not driven this train.
So David answers your question to me.
And the reason is Trump and the media-fired rage over not getting their political way in 2016 and it looking like they are going to lose again in 2020. Not only lose but lose so many of their proven fake talking points about economics and social issues (yes, it is the economy!). It is making them crazy in desperation to keep doubling down on their identity politics strategy because they are otherwise bankrupt of ideas. Trump took their working class votes that they abandoned. And the polls have been demonstrating more blacks getting off the Dem train and onto the anti-Dem train. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/24/blackpac-poll-democrats-117243 Hence the need for firing up their base. Media strings can be pulled. Today there is a long list of phone videos that can be farmed for a political hit piece. Just need to wait to pick the right one. In this case they needed to go big. I don’t see it as a completely coordinated effort… because there are plenty of foreign concerns looking for ways to cause the US to self-destruct into chaos and instability. The virus, the virus response and then this. Right after the failed impeachment. Right before the Barr Durham reports.
I don’t think there is any deep-thinking, data-based, fact-based reaction from the elite white liberal identity politics virtue signaling cohort… they are just looking for something big to keep the national dialog in the toilet so they can claim the talking point of Trump being responsible for the chaos. Defunding the police under the auspices of helping poor inner-city blacks is pretty much just more of the same virtue signaling through the media what will actually result in just the opposite… more dead blacks lacking law enforcement.
The schools are crappy in these neighborhoods and it destroys lives. Why no defund them!? No videos there… at least none that the political-media-establishment will play because it does not support the right political agenda.
The police are not perfect because humans are imperfect and the police are human. The attacks against them from the left are political and they are being thrown under the bus as a scapegoat for decades of failed liberal policies and a Dem party that has not a single good idea for how to make things better.
Frankly, I suggest the cops refuse to respond to any calls for service in elite blue sections of the state. I would start with Beverly Hills. Also Nancy Pelosi’s neighborhood. I think a month of blue flu will start to correct the politics.
And replace them with what? Seems like at their best, schools equipped with adequate resources can do a lot to build up a community over time. If you defund them, then they’re less likely even to function, much less to support the community.
Well I hope you get the irony.
Okay.
By the way, sometimes the news doesn’t always follow scripts that you would expect, and often it’s interesting when it happens:
‘They saved me’: How protesters protected a lone cop, a moment captured in powerful photos
I actually kind-a-sort-a agree with you on the one point above – but the rest of your missive is so full of hot air and superlatives that all I can tell is you danced around my point and never responded to it, though as you pointed out DG did (which is fine, it’s the Vanguard). So again – I say the BLM movement, though I have plenty of issues with their approach and politics, is indeed driven from a grassroots level by real issues that affect people of color – not by progressive white people as you claim.
But just the fact that this cop’s life was in danger because he was alone says a lot too about the violence of the protesters. But still thankful to the peaceful ones who helped protect him.
I think, generally, that the BLM movement is led by and managed by the white campus-trained activists connected to the political left, but I certainly agree that it is well participated with blacks. And I agree 100% that there are justified grievances.
It is weird though. My career in IT was one where I worked with the people of the United Nations. 80s, 90s and into the early 2000s. I remember watching TV in the cafeteria with my very diverse set of coworkers and it was pretty universal that everyone thought that the institutional racism problems were going away and that the Democrats and media were continuing to push a narrative, that we all expected to die off from the natural forward progress we saw happening around us. The big deal at that point was acceptance of gays… not people of different racial, ethnic or gender difference.
And it is true today with the professional class. I just don’t see material bias at all.
What I see is what Murray and others have pointed out… the issue is economic class. It used to be that the upper middle class and middle class lived in the same neighborhood, drove pretty much the same cars, went to the same restaurants and enjoyed the same entertainment. They even vacationed in many of the same places. The differences were few. But the pursuit of globalism through the trade deals and unchecked immigration (along with technology enabled workforce automation)… and the new requirement for a 4.2 GPA out of high school to get that needed 4 year degree from a reasonable institution of higher learning… and a number of other societal and economic changes that has created this ever widening gap of life experiences.
And blacks, unfortunately were victims of bad timing. At the very time they were poised to join the mainstream middle-class dream, it broke apart and pulled away.
Life should be a ladder of growth, progress and greater prosperity. Today it is much more difficult to catch up if falling behind. There are fewer paths. It is like a larger and faster moving wave that children need to be prepared for to launch successfully… fall behind and you cannot swim fast enough to catch up. The gap wides and hope fades. You start to realize that you are stuck. Then resentment. Anger. Crime. Bad behavior. You cannot climb the standard ladder, so pursue another that looks accessible.
My view is that the cops are stuck dealing with these two worlds, and the well-educated liberals fundamentally know they are in another world and are embarrassed by it and made to feel guilty about it and thus agitate and virtue signal that they care as a way to soften their own bad feelings. But continued awareness is a useless waste of time. How the hell does that solve any problems? The cops are not causing these problems, they are just reflect the problems and cause the liberals to revisit their embarrassment and guilt that they are continuing to live the life ahead of the growing gap.
Reparations, UBI, greater welfare… none of this fixes the problem except to help liberal feel better and political charlatans to claim they are heroes.
Black Lives Matter grass roots participants, I think, don’t even really know what they need to demand to make thing better. I know they thing they are experiencing racism, but they are mostly experiencing the reflections of classism. I think the cops are more classist than racist. Their jobs are mad more difficult by people living below the line of social and economic norms. Cops are high-paid professionals. They tend not to even live in the poor neighborhoods they service.
My dream would be that the black race is integrated like Asians are within the American class system. I think if that happens the law enforcement narrative goes away.
Sorry for the long post. I hope I answered your question.
“I think, generally, that the BLM movement is led by and managed by the white campus-trained activists connected to the political left, but I certainly agree that it is well participated with blacks.”
That’s simply false. BLM is led primarily by urban blacks. In fact, most of the chapters I know do not allow whites or even Latinos into the leadership. I don’t you really understand this and then you rely on these marginal reporting sites for your information. I have seen this first hand for years now – and what you are saying doesn’t line up.
DG (& all), I want to go back to my main point in my original comment and get your reaction, because you commented mostly on another point and I think this is a critical point:
I was wondering when this shooting was going to come to a broader light. The first thing I noticed in the initial headlines is none of them said “black” person shot, and I wasn’t hearing a lot of initial outrage. I found it was a person of Latin descent #snip#, and I couldn’t help but think if the headline said ‘black’ the Bay protests would have flared up into a rage. But why should it matter – isn’t it more about police conduct then who the victim is?
This seriously troubles me. I expected this killing to spark huge rioting in the Bay Area, but it hasn’t happened. Wouldn’t you say that if the person killed by the Vallejo police were a black man, it would have started mass rioting all over the country? . . . not that I am in favor of rioting, and not that there has been no response, but I’m very concerned about the lack of a similar outrage because – I assume – of the race of the victim.
I was talking about this with a friend this morning when I realized mid-sentence she was of Latin-American descent. I asked her about my thought – that if this were a black person it would have triggered a massively stronger response, and then point blank (really not knowing) asked, “why do you think that is” ?
She responded: “Because we’re the ‘hated group du jour’ — everyone hates us”. I hadn’t expected that answer. (By the way, I think she meant ‘of our time’ rather than ‘of the day’.)
Clearly, there is police racism misconduct/racism in regard to the Latino community as well. Again, I am not advocating for riots – but this really needs to be looked at. I’ve been critical of Jewish groups saying ‘never again’, yet not speaking up as loudly to condemn numerous genocides since WWII as they would had these been another Jewish genocide. I think we as Jews need to see genocide as genocide, just as strongly as if it were a genocide against Jews, and I think the BLM and those taking part in these protests need to stand up for Sean Monterrosa just as strongly as if he were a black man.
Indeed, it’s these racial identity politics that tear us apart. The de-humanization or putting down of the ‘other’, even when many of that ‘other’ may “deserve” it — they never all deserve it — and that goes both ways.