Killing by Vallejo police drives home common tragedy
her promises of protection are powerless against the heritage of slavery, repression and incarceration in this country.
I’ve been reporting on the use of excessive force by Vallejo police officers against black and brown people since Dejuan Hall, an unarmed black man, was chased and beaten by an officer in 2017. The complaints by Vallejo residents of unfair treatment have been drowned out by gunshots and the tortured wails of grieving families.
McCoy was found asleep in his car in the drive-through lane of the fast food restaurant on Admiral Callaghan Lane. He had a handgun in his lap. The police say McCoy’s windows were rolled up and the doors locked.
But according to his family, the front passenger window had a piece of plastic covering it. Couldn’t an officer have reached in, unlocked the door and arrested the sleeping McCoy peacefully for having an illegal firearm?
Instead, officers with their weapons drawn shouted commands. When McCoy stirred, he reached for the gun. He became a threat. Then six — six — Vallejo police officers fired multiple shots because they feared for their lives.
Watching the video of McCoy’s death reminded me of the death of Mario Romero in September 2012 in Vallejo. Romero was hit with 30 bullets, according to the coroner’s report. McCoy’s death reminded Alicia Saddler of her brother, Angel Ramos, who was fatally shot by Vallejo officers in the home he shared with family two years ago.
“What the police don’t understand — they think they kill our loved ones and then time goes by and we get over it,” Saddler told me on Feb. 13.
She was on her way to a vigil. No, not for McCoy. She was going to a balloon launch marking the first anniversary of the death of Ronnell Foster, a black man who was fatally shot after he allegedly attacked a Vallejo police officer with a flashlight.
Saddler’s brother was killed while trying to be a peacemaker at a party. How many more Vallejo families need to feel her pain?
“It makes you feel lost and stuck,” Saddler said. “No matter what you do, no matter how many protests, how many times you get up and talk at City Council meetings, nothing changes. The police still continue to beat people up. They still continue to kill people, harass people. When is it going to end?”
The lack of accountability by Vallejo police officers causes the community to distrust the police. Residents I’ve gotten to know think the police are more likely to hurt them than to offer help.
“It’s not just police in Vallejo, it’s police everywhere,” said McCoy, who grew up in Vallejo but now lives in Sacramento, where she marched in protest of the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark by the Sacramento Police Department almost a year ago.
If McCoy were white, I think he’d be alive.
“White men are killing large numbers of people and are armed with automatic weapons and yet the police manage to apprehend them without hurting them,” said Lizzie Buchen, a legislative advocate for the ACLU of California. “So obviously, police have the capability of apprehending people who are dangerous, who have committed very violent acts and who are armed.”
People of color don’t always get the same treatment by law enforcement.
That’s why the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense tailed police officers patrolling Oakland neighborhoods a half century ago.
This is why Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest police brutality and racism.
This is why the new California law requiring cities to unseal police misconduct records — a law police unions are fighting — is so important.
“One of the big challenges with policing is there has been such a total lack of transparency,” Buchen said. “We have not been able to see how the agencies are investigating these situations, how they’re applying their policies and whether officers are facing any consequences for their actions.”
We can’t count on police officers, especially those on duty in Vallejo, to police themselves. We can only count on them to strike again.