Vallejo police’s lack of transparency clear
The Vallejo Police Department released the body camera footage of the fatal shooting of Sean Monterrosa, but what happened in the early morning hours of June 2 — and why — isn’t any clearer. There are only more questions. Why did the Police Department wait more than a month to release the footage when it doesn’t even show exactly what happened? Why has the official explanation of the shooting changed? Who is really in charge of investigating the shooting?
At least one thing is crystal clear: The public can’t trust Vallejo police to be transparent, and the handling of this case is an example of why.
“There’s a culture of trying to shield the public from getting the full information about police useofforce incidents, and I think we saw that again here where there was no reason for (the body cam footage) to be withheld as long as it was,” Sean Riordan, a senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, told me. “It created further suspicion and further undermined, to put it lightly, the frayed trust between the city, the Police Department and the community.”
This is a moment when policing is under intense scrutiny across the country. But Vallejo, which has a long history of troubling fatal shootings and questionable use of force by police officers, seems to be doing everything it can to ob
fuscate.
The body camera footage shows that the Vallejo police officer who killed Monterrosa in front of a Walgreens on Redwood Street was in the back seat of an unmarked pickup truck that had just pulled up to the scene when he fired a highpowered rifle through the windshield.
“In terms of transparency, we want to put out as much information as possible so we wanted to give you what happened before, during and after the shooting with the audio dispatch,” Police Chief Shawny Williams told me at a news conference last week. “And so I believe the community should look at the video and decide for themselves.”
There isn’t much to see.
Initially, Williams said Monterrosa, a 22yearold San Franciscan, was on his knees and raising his arms, “revealing what appeared to be the butt of a handgun” when he was shot. Last week, Williams said Monterrosa was “in a crouchingdown, halfkneeling position as if in preparation to shoot.” He also said Monterrosa was shot in the back of the head. None of this was confirmed by the released footage.
Melissa Nold, one of the attorneys representing Monterrosa’s family, examined his body and said she doesn’t believe he was shot in the back of the head.
“He had an entry wound in his throat — and a bullet fragment exit the back of his head,” said Nold, who before becoming an attorney worked as a deputy sheriff ’s coroner. “On the video, you hear (police) talking about bleeding out of the back of the head, and maybe that’s where the chief got that from. But he was not shot
in the back of the head. He didn’t have an entry wound in the back of the head.”
Nold doubts the police description of events.
“I find it hard to believe that the officers in the front seat of the car saw what they thought (the officer who fired the rifle) saw, because why didn’t they shoot?” she said. “Why didn’t the passenger shoot if they saw a guy point a gun at them? Obviously they didn’t, because he didn’t have a gun.”
Monterrosa had a hammer in his sweatshirt pocket.
It wasn’t until the day after Monterrosa’s death that police released his identity and told the public he’d died. As my colleagues Anna Bauman and Megan Cassidy reported, Williams’ revised statement now aligns with the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association’s description of Monterrosa’s body language just before the shooting.
In a statement, the union wrote that “Monterrosa abruptly pivoted back around toward the officers, crouched into a tactical shooting position, and grabbed an object in his waistband that appeared to be the butt of a handgun.”
The union, which didn’t respond to requests for comment, filed for and received a temporary restraining order to stop the release of the names of the officers involved. So much for transparency. The next hearing is Wednesday.
Two days after Monterrosa’s death, Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams requested an independent review, but Attorney General Xavier Becerra declined to have the state Department of Justice get involved. On July 2, Abrams recused her office from reviewing the Monterrosa shooting and the fatal shooting of Willie McCoy, who had 55 shots fired at him as he slept in a fast food drivethrough lane on Feb. 9, 2019, asking that Becerra take them over instead.
Maybe Becerra should set up an office in Vallejo, because in June he announced a “review and reform agreement” with Vallejo to investigate useofforce procedures, antibias community policing, officer accountability and more.
The OIR Group, a company that specializes in police practices, is also investigating the Monterrosa shooting. In June, OIR Group released a 70page report that found that the Police Department wasn’t properly reviewing useofforce incidents, suitably investigating misconduct allegations or appropriately disciplining officers.
On Tuesday, Williams, who is in his eighth month on the job, will present to the City Council an analysis of use of force incidents from 2017 to 2019.
“There needs to be a functioning internal accountability structure. That’s a bottomline requirement as we rethink policing broadly and in Vallejo,” Riordan said. “You need to be able to do your own investigations and hold your own people accountable. There’s a place for external review and investigation as well, but it needs to start at home.”
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr