DA defends donation from police union
O’Malley’s re-election campaign reported $10,000 contribution amid investigations into officer shootings
Fremont’s police union donated $10,000 to Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley’s reelection campaign while her office investigated three officers’ actions in the separate fatal shootings of two people last year, campaign finance records show.
The three police officers were subsequently cleared of wrongdoing. One of them, Sgt. Jeremy Miskella, is president of the police union.
O’Malley’s challenger for district attorney in the June election has criticized the donation as improper.
O’Malley is defending the integrity of her office and has called for the state attorney general to review one of the cases.
O’Malley’s campaign reported the donation from the Fremont Police Association on Nov. 8, 2017. Less than a month later, on Dec. 6, O’Malley’s office cleared Fremont Officer James Taylor of any wrongdoing in the fatal shooting death of Nana Adomako in February of that year.
And on Feb. 13, 2018, O’Malley’s office cleared Miskella and Detective Joel Hernandez in the killing of a 16-year-old pregnant Antioch girl, Elena Mondragon, on March 14, 2017.
The city of Fremont and the officers are facing federal lawsuits over both shootings.
“It’s not proper,” civil rights attorney Pamela Price, who is seeking O’Malley’s seat this June, said in an interview regarding the campaign donation.
“It speaks of the lack of accountability that we’ve experienced in the East Bay for decades between the district attorney’s office and the law enforcement community,” Price said.
“We were aware that the Fremont police officers association has taken a very strong position in (O’Malley’s) favor, and the fact that they had those investigations pending certainly creates the appearance of a conflict, if not an actual conflict,” Price said of the contribution.
In an email to this news organization, O’Malley said there was no impropriety in her office’s review of the two officer-involved shooting cases and has asked for an external review of the confrontation in which Mondragon was killed.
“Under no circumstances was the decision regarding the Fremont police officers influenced in any way by any politics,” she said.
“Nevertheless, I have asked for an independent review of the case from the state attorney general to remove even the slightest appearance of impropriety,” she added.
O’Malley did not respond to questions about when she requested the external review of the investigation, and why she made the request for only one of the two cases involving Fremont officers.
Price said O’Malley should have asked the state attorney general to take over both investigations from the very beginning.
“Both cases are serious enough, and there’s such a long relationship with (Fremont police) that it’s appropriate to ask for outside assistance,” she said.
“What should have been very clear to her is that she should not accept campaign contributions from people she’s actively investigating,” Price said, adding that accepting the money compromises O’Malley’s credibility.
Asked if taking donations from law enforcement officers poses a conflict, O’Malley said she’s “proud of the support.”
“They, like many others, support me because of my experience and my innovative work to combat human trafficking and protect women, families and other vulnerable people across the county,” she said.
In the March 14, 2017, confrontation, Miskella and Hernandez were part of a task-force operation trying to capture a man wanted for violent armed robberies, Rico Tiger.
The officers fired their rifles at a moving car Tiger was driving with Mondragon and two others inside when Tiger tried to run them over to escape, according to police. Mondragon was hit and later died.
Miskella and another officer didn’t turn their body cameras on to record the confrontation, and Hernandez wasn’t wearing one, though it’s still unclear whether he was assigned one.
In the Feb. 5, 2017, shooting, Taylor said he was punched repeatedly by Adomako after attempting to place him in a wrist lock.
When Taylor released his police dog for assistance, the dog instead bit the officer. Taylor fired three shots in close range, killing Adomako.
The Fremont police union’s $10,000 donation was the biggest amount given by any law enforcement union to O’Malley’s 2018 campaign. The Oakland Police Officers Association donated $9,500 and the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of Alameda County $8,500.
The union for Livermore police officers donated $2,500 and the San Leandro and Berkeley police unions gave $1,000 each.
A review of O’Malley’s campaign filings show that she never previously received contributions from the Fremont Police Association.
Miskella, the union president, did not respond to a request for comment on this story. Detective Michael Gebhardt, the union’s vice president and chairman of the union’s political action committee said in an email the organization is proud to endorse O’Malley.
“District Attorney O’Malley has a wealth of experience, and we are happy to be among the thousands of organizations and people across the county who support her,” he said.
A spokesman for the California Fair Political Practices Commission declined to comment on the practice of law enforcement donating to district attorney campaigns, saying people and committees donate to the candidates they support for a variety of reasons.
“One would expect a business group to support a ‘business-friendly’ candidate, or an environmental group to support an ‘environmentally friendly’ candidate,” said Jay Wierenga, communications director for the commission.
O’Malley was appointed by Alameda County supervisors in 2009 with three yes votes; two supervisors abstained because they said they wanted a more thorough process to pick the successor to former District Attorney Tom Orloff.
Price is the first challenger O’Malley has had to face in an election. She ran unopposed in 2010 and in 2014.