VALLEJO POLICE DEPARTMENT:

Independent Assessment of
Operations, Internal Review Systems,
and Agency Culture
May 2020

OIR GROUP
Michael Gennaco
Stephen Connolly
Julie Ruhlin

  



GROUP

323-821-0586
7142 Trask Avenue Playa del Rey, CA 90293
OIRGroup.com

 

Table of Contents
Introduction ...............................................................................1
Methodology ..............................................................................5
PART ONE

The Vallejo Police Department:
Recent History and Present-Day Realities ..... 7

PART TWO

New Resources, New Leadership,
and Opportunities for Change .......................... 13

PART THREE

Internal Review Systems:
Assessments and Suggestions ........................ 21
VPD and Body Cameras ......................................... 21
Officer-Involved-Shootings and Critical Incident
Review .................................................................... 24
Other Uses of Force ................................................. 35
Complaints and Allegations of Misconduct ............. 40
Other Review Protocols .......................................... 48
Civil Claims ........................................................ 48
Evaluations ........................................................ 50

PART FOUR

Other Operational Issues ................................. 53
Officer-Involved Shootings:
Community Outreach and Transparency ................ 53
Transparency and Community Engagement .......... 58
Independent Oversight ............................................ 60

Conclusion ............................................................................................ 63
Recommendations ............................................................................. 65

 Introduction

I

n the summer of 2019, Vallejo officials were responding to a time of
transition for the City’s Police Department (“VPD,” or “the Department”).
The chief was newly retired, and the search for a new leader was underway
against a backdrop of recent incidents – including fatal officer-involved shootings
– that had prompted public concern and even demonstrations. It seemed as if a
number of individual encounters were fitting all too well into larger, troubling
narratives about American law enforcement: deadly force under disputed
circumstances that affected minority subjects to a disproportionate extent, and
strained relationships with residents that arose from and contributed to that reality
while raising issues of trust and public confidence.
To be sure, there were other perspectives besides those of the Department’s most
engaged detractors. A significant number of residents and groups within the City
continued to be supportive of the police – both quietly and more overtly. And
several new outreach initiatives, started under the now retired Chief, showed a
commitment to positive connections outside of traditional enforcement contexts.
Nonetheless, leadership within Vallejo’s city government decided that the time
was right to take a step back and to assess the Department’s strengths, challenges,
and opportunities in a new way. We have been advised that a key impetus for the
Council’s decision to commission this report was the City’s risk management
crisis, which brought the prospect of radically higher insurance premiums. The
Council also was concerned about the perception that Vallejo had not developed a
sufficient plan to address the negative claim trends and other community voiced
concerns. As a result, the City engaged an outside consultant with the goal of
refashioning an overarching professional risk management program. In addition
to assisting with the insurance issue, the firm also recommended that the City take
a deeper dive into the departments that were the source of most claims – Police,
Fire, and Public Works – and the Council and City Manager accordingly sought
further review of their operating practices.

 It was against that backdrop that the City commissioned OIR Group to conduct an
independent assessment of the Police Department – not through the prism of a
specific case but in a more holistic way. The goal was to gain an objective,
constructive analysis that would put VPD’s operational approaches into a larger
context of best practices and potential reforms.
This Report is the product of that review. It was prepared by OIR Group, a team
of private consultants that specializes in police practices and the civilian oversight
of law enforcement. Since 2001, OIR Group has worked exclusively with
government entities in a variety of contexts related to independent outside review
of law enforcement, from investigation to monitoring to systems evaluation. Our
members have provided oversight in jurisdictions throughout California, as well
as in several other states.
As discussed below, our impressions are mixed. We recognize the unique,
significant hurdles that VPD has faced in terms of staffing, resources, and a
challenging socio-economic environment – and at the same time recommend
several new, attainable best practices as gleaned from our prior experience. We
appreciate the dedication that we encountered from VPD officers of all ranks –
and at the same time believe that a shift from the “siege mentality” of recent years
would redound to the benefit of officers and residents alike. We understand how
the high volume of daily demands has made review and retrospection seem like
less of a priority – and at the same time have sought to emphasize the value and
necessity of these internal practices. And we acknowledge that a foundation of
support for VPD within Vallejo already exists – and at the same time hope that
structural changes and additional resources will provide a basis for strengthened
relations and positive new philosophies.
Many of the most glaring realities of policing in Vallejo are a function of the 2008
financial crisis that led to bankruptcy and the massive retrenchment of the
Department. Huge cuts to the number of sworn officers – and to the
compensation of those who remained or came along later – were obviously not
accompanied by reductions in crime and calls for service. What it meant, then,
was that a relatively small cadre did its best to manage the high volume of serious
calls, while service levels for other matters deteriorated (to the frustration of
officers and victims alike). The line-of-duty shooting death of a VPD officer by a
robbery suspect in 2011 undoubtedly added to the perception of a uniquely
dangerous and disadvantaged environment.

2

 Even as the City began to climb back from the worst of its budgetary woes, the
impacts on the Department lingered. The headquarters building itself has
deteriorated and is plagued with asbestos and faulty plumbing; its sub-optimal
status as a facility makes it emblematic in the staff’s eyes of the challenging
circumstances that perpetually confront them. Equipment is notoriously old and
faulty. And, while the ranks of sworn officers are back over 100 (after a low of
77), those numbers remain well below the peak staffing levels that preceded 2008.
There are other residual difficulties as well: salaries are below the market
average, the workload is highly demanding, forced overtime is routine. All these
factors make it difficult to attract and retain excellent officers.
The impacts on performance are multi-faceted. One of them that we noted is an
“us against the world” mindset that, while understandable, is also fraught with
potential pitfalls – particularly in an era of shifting social attitudes and
expectations regarding law enforcement accountability and responsiveness to the
community. Much of the Department seems to have an aggrieved perspective
toward local politicians, the media, and its critics in the activist and legal
communities (including an active plaintiffs’ bar). It becomes easy in such
circumstances to perceive even the most fair-minded critiques from outsiders as
attacks, and to let the less fair-minded ones become a breeding ground for
defensiveness and resentment.
In such an environment, even internal review processes – to the extent that there
is time and energy for them at all – become sensitive matters. Shortcomings are
chalked up to the inherent limitations of an under-resourced agency, and scrutiny
or correction feels like one more burden on a beleaguered workforce. In our
assessment of several VPD internal investigations into uses of force, officerinvolved shootings, critical incidents, and misconduct allegations, we noted an
apparent reticence when it came to finding fault or going beyond the “bottom
line” questions of whether specific conduct was within or outside of policy.
This is not to say that the Department lacks talent or insight or the potential to
shift toward new paradigms of external engagement and internal commitments to
improvement. We met a number of VPD members who impressed us greatly –
not only with their expertise and dedication, but also by revealing their insights
into changing community expectations. They clearly recognize the difference
between something being “in policy” and “effective” when it came to officer
performance, and seem committed to building equity amongst members of the
public through their approaches to enforcement. With more resources, new
priorities, and a commitment to constructive but rigorous internal review, the

3

 agency can harness the ability of its personnel and move in positive new
directions.
Our recommendations, then, fall into a few categories. The goals are as follows:
•

•
•

•

To utilize newly available resources in order to improve officer morale
and working conditions, and to enhance problem-solving, relational, and
responsive approaches to policing.
To promote an internal culture that benefits from diverse perspectives and
a more positive mindset toward the Department’s role in the city.
To strengthen officer performance by formalizing supervisorial review
processes across a range of key areas, and developing mechanisms for
constructive accountability.
To increase transparency and public trust through changes in policy, new
types of outreach, and the creation of a suitable form of independent
oversight.

When it comes to the viability of these goals, our timing is opportune. In the
months since we began our work, a new chief has been appointed. He comes
from outside the agency, and his selection was the result of a careful, multiphased process that involved significant community input. His mandate is to lead
the Department into a new era while drawing upon the insights, experience, and
commitment of the agency’s veteran officers and supervisors.
Having met him in our last visit to the City, and hearing the enthusiasm that his
first several weeks has generated among several of his new colleagues, we are
optimistic about his success. We hope this Report will serve as part of the
foundation for building that success.

4

 Methodology
There were three primary phases to our review process. After receiving some
initial background information and familiarizing ourselves with recent history in
the city and the Department itself, we made an initial two-day site visit in July of
2019. This gave us the opportunity to meet in person with the interim Chief of
the Department – who had only recently been appointed and who himself came to
the job with an outsider’s perspective (having spent his whole law enforcement
career in another nearby jurisdiction).
We also met at that time with Vallejo officials from outside the Department,
gaining insight from them about the city and about the challenges the Department
has faced in recent years – structurally, culturally, demographically,
economically, and legally. We heard about the varying perspectives that
comprise community sentiment about the Department – from the support it enjoys
among a faction of local leaders to the pointed criticism it has experienced from
activists in the wake of several inciting incidents. And we spoke with a
representative from the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Department of
Justice. Invited by city officials to offer potential assistance, he was in the midst
of facilitating an organized program of community engagement and planning, and
offered useful observations about Vallejo’s recent history and dynamics.
Finally, we met several other Department members to gain information about
Department processes and hear their views on VPD’s formative history as well as
its current circumstances. This included members of the command staff as well as
lower-ranking officers and a representative of the officers’ labor association.
Predictably – and usefully – these individuals brought distinctive experiences and
opinions to the discussion, but a number of common themes emerged nonetheless.
With this visit as a foundation, our next step was to make a request for documents
across various categories. This included (but were not limited to) the following:
•

•

Activity reports from a randomly chosen two-day period, as a window into
the volume and nature of enforcement work on an “average” series of
shifts;
Reports, memos, recordings, and/or other documentation relating to a
sampling of recent use of force incidents;

5

 •
•
•
•
•
•
•

Examples of administrative case files from the completed review of five
officer-involved shooting cases;
Documentation showing the Department’s critical incident review process
for non-shooting events;
Samples of recently completed administrative discipline investigations and
citizen complaint reviews;
Examples of background investigations for recently hired personnel
chosen at random;
Materials relating to community outreach initiatives;
Five recently received legal claims against the Department, along with
responsive documents; and
A group of randomly chosen performance evaluations.

The goal was to gain – by extrapolating from individual and specific examples – a
broader understanding about various aspects of VPD’s operations and internal
review systems. The Department worked with us in order to provide responsive
materials over the course of several weeks, and we were accordingly able to
garner a number of valuable impressions.
We also had a number of follow-up questions as a result of our review, and these
were a starting point as we made plans for a follow-up site visit to Vallejo in
February of 2020. That trip included an opportunity to sit with the new chief and
to learn about his initial weeks on the job and his ambitions for the Department –
in terms of operational infrastructure, community relations, and internal culture.
We met with several sergeants and lieutenants. And we particularly appreciated
the chance to sit with a range of line-level officers who had varying levels of
experience in the agency. We also supplemented these conversations with line
personnel by participating in ride-alongs with two different patrol officers, who
proved to be patient and informative hosts.
The officers with whom we spent time in the field that evening were, in some
ways, representative of our larger experience with the Department. They struck
us as hard-working, dedicated to the agency and the city, and generous in sharing
their point of view – in spite of their acknowledged frustration with recent outside
criticism and their leeriness about the utility of any recommended reforms. We
appreciate the cooperation we received from them, from their colleagues at all
ranks of the agency, and from the civilian representatives of Vallejo whom we
met.

6

 PART ONE:

The Vallejo Police Department:
Recent History and Present-Day
Realities

A comprehensive history of the Vallejo Police Department is outside the scope of
both our assignment and knowledge base. It’s also true that external – and
internal – circumstances change quickly in contemporary life; the Department
itself has had four different Chiefs (and one Interim Chief) since 2010, each with
his own leadership style and priorities and immediate challenges. Accordingly,
an emphasis on past events can have limited utility.
At the same time, though, there are several members of the agency whose tenure
extends back some 20 years or more. Their perspective is directly shaped by
history and some of the dramatic changes that the city and VPD have experienced
during that period; they in turn influence newer officers and contribute to the
overarching culture through that prism. As for those dramatic changes
themselves, the first to consider is the bankruptcy of 2008 and its subsequent
influence on VPD.
Most starkly, the city’s financial crisis led to a sudden and large-scale reduction in
the number of officers in the agency. VPD lost nearly half of its sworn personnel
in a short period after the 2008 economic collapse, from approximately 150
officers to 77 at the lowest point. The impacts of that severe reduction are in
some ways as difficult to quantify as the numbers themselves are straightforward.
But they are both significant and far-reaching at every level of the agency and
shape its place in the community.
First among these impacts is that the precipitous decline in staffing had obvious
implications for the Department’s service model and ability to continue meeting
the public’s needs in comprehensive, efficient ways. Patrol functions became a
matter of triage rather than full service. Not only did the ability to engage in
discretionary contacts, establish neighborhood relationships, or pursue preventive
enforcement strategies become severely compromised, but even the response to
calls for service devolved into a constant backlog. Staying abreast of “Priority
One” (emergency) responses became, out of necessity, the dominant task of every
shift, while lesser crimes (such as stolen property or auto burglaries) could go
hours or days without being attended to, if at all. And the closing of local

7

 substations under retrenchment meant that basic physical connections with
individual neighborhoods were lost.
That paradigm has continued into the present, even with a gradual, partial
recovery in staffing numbers as the budget stabilized. Statistics bear this out: at
approximately .8 officers for every 1,000 residents in the city, VPD is operating
well-below law enforcement’s national averages and recommended standards of
1.5 and 2, respectively. (As of this writing, the Department has 103 filled
positions for sworn officers, and is budgeted to hire 19 more.)
It also endures today as a consistent theme in officer descriptions of their work
experience and challenges. They are sympathetic to the residents who are not
getting the kind of service they would want and expect in addressing their
“quality of life” concerns. (Often, victims of property crimes like auto burglaries
must resort to filing their own reports with the Department online, or by visiting
the lobby of headquarters.) To a person, the officers seem frustrated that they
cannot provide that service, that they must process each call so quickly (often at
the expense of patience and effectiveness), and that community confidence in the
agency has dipped accordingly.
Other factors related to the 2008 financial crash have affected agency operations,
culture, and morale. For example, the persistence of short-handed patrol shifts –
as well as limited staffing for units such as traffic and investigations – has several
significant implications. At the most basic level, it is our understanding that VPD
routinely falls below its own “required” staffing numbers for officers who are
working patrol at a given time. Beyond the detractions from service capability
described above, this dynamic leads to other disadvantages. Not the least of these
is that it puts the Department’s management in a compromised position: when
certain standards are disregarded as a matter of practical necessity, it becomes
harder to assert and uphold the importance of others with a straight face.
Another pervasive consequence is that mandatory overtime is routine throughout
the agency. For all its financial compensations, the practice inevitably erodes
energy levels and takes a toll on both performance and attitude. Officers who are
physically tired from both the length and pace of their workdays will inevitably
struggle to operate at their most thoughtful levels. Moreover, the cumulative
effects on morale of long shifts under demanding conditions also seemed to be in
evidence during our visits: burnout, discouragement, and a pervasive sense of
being underappreciated by city officials as well as outsiders.

8

 Meanwhile, comparatively low salary rates comprise another problematic legacy
of the original financial difficulties. In conjunction with other challenges of the
job, this basic reality makes it difficult to recruit desirable candidates1 and
alleviate the workload concerns, even though the current budget would allow for
the filling of several more positions.2 It has also been a factor – dating back to
2008 – in the departure of officers as lateral transfers to other agencies.
Collectively, then, VPD has spent more than a decade in which its own
experienced officers often leave to go elsewhere, and the experienced officers
from other agencies have been less inclined to reciprocate than in the past.
As for the officers who comprise the agency now, they are of course varied in
their experience levels, strengths, priorities, and perspectives. We hesitate to
characterize them too uniformly or simplistically. But the Department’s own
more senior members offered interesting opinions about the cumulative profile of
the workforce: that many of the younger officers were overmatched by the job
they were expected to do (thus making outside criticism of them unfair and
counterproductive)3 and that the only legitimate attraction for capable senior
officers was the chance to do “real” police work in an atmosphere of latitude and
trust (thus making outside criticism of them unfair and counterproductive). In
short, the prevailing sentiment was that officers who are willing to contend with
dangerous crime in a thankless environment should at least be empowered to do
so without unnecessary scrutiny or interference.

1

In our review of several background investigations for newly hired members of the
Department, our collective impression is that they were quite solid and even impressive.
But they were also a young and inexperienced group, and at least one had past
legal/judgment issues that seemed notable if not actively concerning.
2

These problems have only been exacerbated by the nation-wide decrease in applicants
for careers in policing in recent years.
3

We were also informed, at least anecdotally, that the scarcity of officers inevitably
means that the Department is more tolerant of performance issues during the probationary
period for new hires. (In most law enforcement agencies, full employment protections do
not apply until an officer has successfully completed an initial stretch of service time –
typically a year – during which he or she can be released at will.) Like any dilution of
standards, this can be problematic. However, we should also note a counterweight that
deserves attention: The Department’s field training program (in which new officers ride
for their first several weeks with more senior ones, and must meet certain proficiencies
before “passing”) seems to be rigorous. We discuss this in more detail below.

9

 This cuts a couple of ways. Certainly, the crime statistics in Vallejo warrant an
active enforcement mindset, and we reiterate our respect for the officers and the
difficult work officers do. Nor do we have reason to assume that those “hard
charging” officers of the Department are motivated by anything other than
passion for the work and a genuine desire to protect the community. Certainly,
they bring value to the agency.
But it is also crucial for that dedication and work ethic to operate within
appropriate parameters. These include a willingness to accept supervision,
scrutiny, and accountability as reasonable (or even beneficial) parts of the job –
not burdens that add insult to the injury of difficult working conditions. And the
ideal paradigm is one in which law enforcement reflects – and engages with – the
community as a whole, rather than dividing it into sheep that need protection and
wolves that demand aggression.
We recognize that striking the correct balance between distinctive values can be
difficult, whether it be action vs. deliberation, oversight vs. autonomy, or a
galvanizing resentment of crime vs. an appropriate respect for due process. And
we respect the concerns of officers when it comes to reform initiatives that
misunderstand or disregard the realities of their work. Nonetheless, it is our view,
and for a variety of reasons, that the “scales” at VPD merit realignment in the
direction of more contemporary, progressive standards.
Achieving this fairly and constructively will require the City and VPD managers
to hold up their end of the bargain. Some of the steps relate to improved
infrastructure and budgetary commitments; as discussed below, those steps are
already underway to an encouraging extent and should pay many and varied
dividends. But it is also incumbent on the Department’s leadership to make sure
that any accompanying changes to accountability and supervision are
implemented in a context of clear communication and meaningful intention.
Another byproduct of Vallejo’s challenging environment and VPD’s own history
within it is a seeming alienation from the community itself. Rather than thinking
of the Department as a reflection of the community and an integrated component
of it, many officers seem to take the support of most residents as a given while
reserving their focus for the criminal element that makes their work so precarious.
Indeed, we heard frequent references to how dangerous Vallejo is and to the
dichotomy between the “good people” and the problematic ones. In terms of
community relations, multiple Department members expressed their sense that
“almost everybody supports/loves/is with us,” and that the only ones who don’t

10

 are the criminals or their supporters, who “will never be happy no matter what we
do.”
We have due respect for the sincerity of those impressions and for the lived
experiences that presumably inform them. In fact, VPD was able to provide
numerous examples of commendations and letters of appreciation generated by
grateful citizens. And a request for information about “community outreach”
produced a listing for one year that included several hundred individual events.
The City’s Midnight Basketball League, of which VPD has been an active
supporter for several years, has rightly generated a significant amount of
favorable publicity.
Nonetheless, and without professing to be experts, we are convinced that the
social forces within Vallejo are more complex than the straightforward portrayals
of “sheep” and “wolves,” with beleaguered VPD officers in the middle.4 The
perception of being embattled public servants in a hostile environment can be
self-perpetuating as well as deleterious.
Accordingly, it would very much behoove the Department to focus on bridging
gaps and pursuing connections with the City that go beyond the many worthwhile
efforts that VPD currently undertakes. We heard from a few different officers that
they are collectively “starved” for more positive contacts in the community – a
dynamic that presumably cuts both ways.
Accomplishing this means not only building more breathing room into daily
staffing – which is indeed greatly needed – but also shifting to a mindset that
revolves less around aggressive enforcement and more around problem-solving
and engagement. We discuss these dynamics – and potential responses to them –
in more detail below.

4

For example, as impressive as was the list of “outreach” events, it tended to be limited
to one or two executive level Department members.

11

 12

This page intentionally left blank.

PART TWO:

New Resources, New Leadership, and
Opportunities for Change

Staffing and Infrastructure
Our interactions with the new Chief have been limited, but did include a chance to
get details about his vision for responding to several of VPD’s staffing and
resource challenges. As discussed below, we find particular value in several of
them. They strike us as being appropriate remedial measures (to bring the number
of sworn officers closer to past service levels, and to meet infrastructure needs
such as an upgraded headquarters facility) and as worthy approaches to enhancing
operational effectiveness and community ties.
Obviously, budgetary considerations are central to the viability of these measures,
and the influence of the COVID 19 crisis is certain to be as widespread as it is
adverse from both a health and resource perspective. Moreover, we are usually
reticent about advocating for police resources, in recognition of the ways that
even very worthy expenses are competing for limited dollars with a jurisdiction’s
other needs. But the Police Department is objectively understaffed and has been
for some time. It has effectively made its case that it genuinely needs more
personnel and other supports to the degree that City resources exist to fund them –
now and in the years to come.
We talk in more detail below about additional sworn officers and some potential
approaches to recruiting and retaining them. The following are other structural or
staffing changes – each with financial implications – that also deserve
consideration.
•

New Station: The City has supported relocating the police station to an
already existing structure on Mare Island Way. The current facility is in
poor condition, and a new station will undoubtedly enhance the
effectiveness of VPD personnel and improve morale. While, as with most
capital projects, the “move in” date for all personnel is months away, the
current plan is to move at least some units to the area in short order. Such
a staggered approach is prudent because it will demonstrate to personnel a

13

 commitment to relocation and create momentum for effectuating the
eventual move.
•

Keeping the Lobby More Accessible to the Public. Currently, the police
lobby is only open four days a week. The Chief’s staffing proposal seeks
further resources to keep the lobby open to the public more frequently and
with longer hours. When a police lobby is “closed” for business, it makes
it more difficult for its served community to make inquiries, submit
complaints and commendations, or otherwise conduct police-related
business. Expenditures to increase the hours in which a station is “open”
are, in this way, a method to enhance police-community cohesion.

•

Hiring Community Service Officers to Provide Timely Responses to
Property Crimes. The staffing proposal seeks resources to create
community service officers.5 As detailed above, one particularly
problematic result of patrol staffing shortages is the inability of officers to
timely respond (or even respond at all) to property crimes in which
subjects are not immediately identified. We were advised anecdotally of
cases in which an officer would not be cleared to respond to a burglary
report until hours later – which often meant a decision about whether to
contact the victim for the first time in the middle of the night.
The proposal for a cadre of new community service officers would allow
civilians to handle the initial information-gathering and preliminary
investigation for certain property crimes. This would ensure both a faster
response for those residents, and greater latitude for sworn officers to
spend more time and be more responsive to other calls requiring a sworn
response.

•

5

Evidence and Property. According to VPD, three employees process and
maintain over 700,000 items of evidence in an off-site warehouse.
Regular maintenance and auditing of evidence is an essential “behind the
scenes” law enforcement function – the kind that is little noticed by
outsiders until a problem arises with implications for a specific criminal
case or broader agency credibility. The proposal to ensure sufficient
civilian personnel, overseen by sworn personnel, to ensure effective

While VPD currently has a civilian “Police Assistant” classification, a Community
Service Officer model would more readily lend itself to public recognition and
engagement.

14

 internal audits and controls over evidence is an important investment in
modern-day policing.
RECOMMENDATION 1: The Department should
persevere with the City in its efforts to develop the proposed
new headquarters facility, and look for ways to enhance
community access and engagement.
RECOMMENDATION 2: In considering requests for
staffing, the City should pay particular attention to requests
designed to add civilians to assist with making police
services more accessible such as the lobby and more timely
calls for service.
RECOMMENDATION 3: The City should ensure that VPD
has sufficient resources to properly maintain and audit its
retained stores of evidence and property.

Recruitment and Hiring
VPD members of all perspectives share the sense that the agency’s most
significant need is its simplest: more bodies in uniform. And we agree that the
addition of personnel to budgeted levels would inherently go a long way toward
resolving some of the dynamics that produce the aforementioned negative
implications.
For one, it would reduce the wearying overtime demands. It would also give the
Department more flexibility with regard to staffing specialized units, providing
opportunities for training, and offering more timely and comprehensive service to
the public. And, by better distributing the workload for each shift, it would
reduce the strain on individual officers and potentially decompress individual
calls for service – affording officers more time to interact and develop
relationships with neighborhoods and individual members of the public – to
integrate with the community rather than reacting to it or confronting it. Finally,
when calls for service do arise, more officers would mean more chances to
respond with deliberation and patience and thereby reach safer conclusions.
All of these advantages would presumably contribute to an important collateral
benefit: the enhanced desirability of Vallejo as a destination for potential
applicants. Along with the obvious issues of pay and benefits, several factors
contribute to a law enforcement agency’s appeal to new recruits – and to

15

 experienced officers thinking of making a lateral move from another agency.6
“Working conditions” – which of course covers a range of specific elements – is
prominent among these, and the staffing dynamics would presumably make these
more favorable on the whole.
However, there are other ways for a police agency to attract recruits (and enhance
retention) that the Department would do well to consider. These include
opportunities for a range of experiences beyond patrol,7 and an environment that
supports and attracts diversity in the ranks.
One issue we noted is the limited number of special assignments within the
agency (such as detective, or traffic officer); combined with the lack of a
rotational policy, this means that very few chances arise to cultivate different
skills and experience different aspects of police work. We have heard the issue
argued both ways: there are times when arbitrary “term limits” can seem counterproductive by removing people with special aptitudes from roles for which they
are uniquely well-suited. But in an agency the size of VPD, and given the
demands of the City’s patrol environment, there is much to be said for making
rotations the default, with exceptions where distinctly warranted. While
increasing the total number of officers will provide greater flexibility and address
part of the issue, we encourage the Department to revisit its approach to tenure in
special assignments.
RECOMMENDATION 4: The Department should explore
ways to expose officers to a range of possible work
experiences by changing to a rotational system for
designated special assignments.

6

In our conversations with VPD personnel and leadership, a focus on attracting “laterals”
was mentioned repeatedly as one approach not only to improved staffing but also
improved performance – with the idea being that the inexperience of the agency’s many
new officers inevitably led to less effectiveness in the field. Adoption of a “hiring
bonus” program that offers cash incentives would be one achievable means of helping to
accomplish this. Our response is mixed. The concept makes sense, but it has also been
our experience that officers change agencies for a variety of reasons – not all of which
relate to the challenge of providing highly regarded capabilities in a new environment.
Accordingly, any such targeted recruitment should ideally occur in the context of the
larger structural – and cultural – shifts we endorse.
7

We talked to more than one VPD member who spoke very loyally about the Department
and positively about their experiences – while saying that they probably would have left
by now if not for the chance to promote out of patrol.

16

 We did not have the sense that diversity is a cultural focal point within the agency
– in spite of Vallejo’s demographics and the ways in which racial dynamics
appear to be a factor in the City’s history and in police-community relations. With
certain exceptions (including one enlightening conversation with a veteran officer
about the ways in which segregated African American neighborhoods arose and
persisted in Vallejo, with longstanding consequences) our general impression was
that approaches to community issues were not especially nuanced.
One component of this that we discuss more fully below is seeking out applicants
who bring a range of experiences and perspectives to the work, and might have a
heightened ability to relate to disparate groups within Vallejo. The recent
selection of an African American Chief has obvious significance in this regard.
Ideally, though, the powerful and inherent messaging of that change will be
accompanied by personnel additions – and philosophical evolutions – at other
rank levels.
Similarly, we encourage the Department to focus recruiting efforts on adding
female officers. While the challenge of achieving greater gender balance in law
enforcement is far from unique to Vallejo, we also got the sense that it was not
perceived as a particular value or priority. On the contrary, the view that women
were generally not well-suited for policing in Vallejo’s dangerous environment
seemed to shape at least part of the culture within the Department. This
perspective was not meant to be disparaging or dismissive, but it nonetheless
raised questions about how welcoming and supportive an environment the
Department provides for women – and how much it takes effective advantage of
the distinctive contributions that female officers might be able to bring.
More positively, we note the results of our request for sample background
investigations regarding recent applicants who were ultimately accepted for
employment. Of the eight that the Department provided, three were of women.
This is obviously a concrete step that deserves affirmation. But, given that the
total number of sworn officers who are female still remains below 10% of the
whole, there is room for further work in this arena.
We emphasize that this is not an issue of superficial quota fulfillment. Instead, it
is a way of recognizing that individuals from different backgrounds bring
different sets of skills that can enhance a police agency’s ability to connect with
the various groups with a community. It is a means of gaining credibility and
trust among people who have lacked representation in law enforcement. And it
promotes awareness and insight within the ranks in ways that strengthen
responsiveness and effectiveness.

17

 Moreover, the numbers of female officers of rank provide even starker disparities
because currently VPD has none – no female corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, or
captains. This reality is troublesome, both on its own and for its implications as a
barrier to the aspirations of younger female officers or potential applicants.
Addressing it – through concerted efforts to identify, encourage, and develop
qualified female personnel – should be a priority.
RECOMMENDATION 5: The Department should commit
to strengthening the range and responsiveness of its
workforce by continuing to focus on racial, gender, and
ethnic diversity in its recruiting efforts.
RECOMMENDATION 6: The Department should find ways
to provide promotional opportunities and mentoring for
female officers and officers of color.

Innovative Policing Models
As discussed above, circumstances have shaped the evolution of policing
strategies and Department culture in Vallejo – and to some extent the converse is
probably true. Staffing shortfalls have meant that responding to calls for service –
and sometimes not even all of those – consumes the majority of officer time and
attention. Time pressures have even limited options for creative engagement with
individual calls – never mind the ability of patrol officers to interact with
residents and build constructive relationships across a range of contexts beyond
reactive enforcement. However, the confluence of a new Chief and some longawaited expansions in personnel make this an opportune time for VPD to re-shape
some of its operational approaches and pursue strategies that are more pro-active
and attuned to community priorities.
Some police agencies have recognized the value of community engagement as a
vehicle for identifying and prioritizing problems in keeping with the actual
experiences of individual neighborhood residents. 8 These collaborative strategies
are a way – supported by data in jurisdictions across the country – to holistically
address the roots of criminal activity while heightening public trust through
8

We worked with one agency that responded to a spike in bicycle thefts by developing a
“bait bike” operation to apprehend offenders in the act – only to get significant negative
feedback from residents who disapproved of the strategy for its potential long-term
impacts on arrestees (who were often juveniles). Interestingly, the agency moved to a
strategy that put greater emphasis on alerts and preventive security measures.

18

 collaboration and communication. To the degree the City provides VPD with
additional resources, it should similarly ask that officers begin to reorient to a
hybrid enforcement/community engagement model of policing.
To that end, one effective strategy that many agencies have employed is the
notion of a neighborhood officer or platoon specially assigned to certain “beats”
or neighborhoods. With such assignments, officers connect more substantively
with residents and develop a detailed understanding of the area’s dynamics,
personalities, and priorities – thereby better recognizing and more effectively
responding to those issues that do arise.
We understand that there is no real ability under current staffing for such beat
integrity. But as more resources become available, VPD leadership should
consider ways for officers to better connect with and assume responsibility for the
various neighborhoods of Vallejo.
RECOMMENDATION 7: As additional resources become
available, VPD should develop and deploy crime prevention
strategies involving problem solving and community
engagement.
RECOMMENDATION 8: As additional resources become
available, VPD should consider assigning officers to
neighborhoods and beats and empower them to devise crime
prevention strategies to keep their assigned neighborhoods
safe.

19

 20

This page intentionally left blank.

PART THREE:

Internal Review Systems:
Assessments and Suggestions

VPD and Body Cameras
We were interested to learn that VPD officers on patrol had been equipped with
body-worn cameras for several years – well before they became a focal point of
the movement toward greater transparency and accountability for law
enforcement. But the VPD approach is a reminder that the advent of affordable,
reliable camera technology has at times made for strange bedfellows: for every
activist who sees the cameras as an overdue method for preventing unchecked
abuse of police authority, there is an officer who considers the recordings a
welcome safeguard against malicious complaints from the public. Put another
way, the concept of cameras on officers has received both internal and external
support, but the underlying rationales are often quite distinct.
The VPD experience to date has seemingly been more about assisting officers in
their work than holding them to established standards or addressing potential
performance issues. While the “assistance” feature is certainly a worthwhile one,
the best camera programs are ones that encompass all the potential appeals of the
technology. VPD’s policy and philosophy have historically been limited in this
regard. But that is changing for the better.
At the heart of this shift is the policy that governs when and for how long officers
are expected to activate the recorders in a given encounter. The version of the
policy that prevailed until very recently framed the activation as something the
officers “should” do as a precursor to engaging in enforcement activity, traffic
stops, or contacts with the public that become adversarial at some point. This
standard expresses a clear preference, but it also falls well short of imposing a
concrete obligation. The new policy, on the other hand, removes any potential
ambiguity: it states that the officers “shall” activate in the same set of situations.
Making this shift aligns the VPD policy with numerous other law enforcement
agencies, and is more consistent with best practices in this arena.

21

 It was the Chief who identified this as an issue after taking over in November of
2019; he quickly expressed his intentions to revise the policy, and he met with
association representatives and his own leadership team in an effort to achieve
this in a purposeful fashion. Recently, the updated version was adopted. The
importance of this is best understood with a look back at how the previous version
was interpreted in practice, as articulated by some of the officers we met and
corroborated by our own review of various materials that VPD provided.
The officers’ position went something like this: at its best, the body-worn camera
helps officers do their jobs by providing valuable evidence and creating a record
of matters that might be disputed for various reasons. In their view, the “should”
language in the former policy served this objective well. It created a default
obligation to activate that both provided guidance and recognized the possibility
that an officer might well have a rational basis for not conforming in a given
context. In short, “should” created a reasonable exception that kept the
requirement from being burdensome – or even unsafe in a rapidly unfolding
encounter.
Anything more stringent than that, went the officers’ reasoning, would be an
attempt to placate adversaries whose agenda was less about objective
transparency and more about embarrassing officers for their off-the-cuff remarks,
or seeing them disciplined over peripheral and trivial transgressions. The new
“shall” requirement took away discretion. And it reflected a lack of trust in the
accuracy of any representations not reinforced with a recording.
While the officers’ concerns made sense, we disagree with the notion that the
change is either inherently hostile or unwarranted. In fact, the prior approach as
practiced tipped past reasonability in the opposite direction. Officers’
justifications for why they didn’t or couldn’t activate their cameras were accepted
so broadly as to border on the “exception that swallowed the rule.” And
managers were discouraged from formal intervention when body-camera
recordings did reveal peripheral issues of potential misconduct or poor
performance that were not directly related to the evidence or issue at hand.
Such leeriness about not wanting rank and file personnel to resent or fear the
cameras might come from an understandable place, but it can easily be taken too
far. The reality is, multiple agencies throughout the state and nation that have
body-worn cameras follow the more stringent approach, and have done so for
years without their personnel being subject to relentless “gotcha” scenarios.
Presumably, VPD management will and should enforce the new policy in a way
that puts an emphasis on transparency and meaningful accountability.

22

 More significant to the importance of the new policy, though, are the gaps we
noticed in our review of incidents for which recordings would have been quite
beneficial. This included one of the recent officer-involved shooting cases for
which we requested investigative materials. In that incident, an officer shot and
killed a young man in defense of a third party when responding to reports of a
large-scale fight. What factors shaped the officer’s perception of a deadly threat
became a matter of dispute, and remains so for family members of the decedent
and others. While there was evidence that supported the officers’ version, the
absence of a recording meant that a source of potentially dispositive information
was lost.
This is corrosive from a public trust perspective. We recognize that the existence
of body-worn camera recordings has hardly ended debate about the legitimacy of
certain police actions; in a dynamic encounter, the angles are often imperfect,
inconclusive, or even misleading as a representation of what the officer saw and
what occurred. But part of the cameras’ value is the signaling that they represent:
that the police are willing to be accountable and to stand by their actions by
capturing them to the extent possible. When a recording is expected but not
actually created, it obviously nullifies that signal and instead provokes skepticism
– even if the involved officer’s lapse was justified or inadvertent. For that reason,
it is important for agencies to set a high standard for compliance and to reinforce
that with their personnel so that activation becomes second nature.
Moreover, the episodes of unrecorded contacts were apparently not restricted to
critical incidents. For example, we requested all available materials for a small
sampling of use of force cases chosen at random and that occurred in 2019. VPD
provided us with body-camera recordings from three such incidents. These
encounters each included multiple officers and multiple force options (including
one Taser use and one carotid control hold). But only one of the three incidents
produced recordings that captured the force itself, and even this was limited to
one of the several officers involved and did not provide a useful vantage point.
From this admittedly small sample size, our takeaway was that officers did not
incline toward recording in a way that suggested the “should activate” language
sufficed as guidance.
RECOMMENDATION 9: The Department should use the
adoption of a new, stricter activation requirement as the
foundation for a new approach to its body-worn camera
technology.

23

 RECOMMENDATION 10: The Department should
implement a graduated program of accountability to ensure
that officers are complying with the expectations of the new
policy.
RECOMMENDATION 11: The Department’s management
should consider body-worn camera recordings as, among
other things, a forum for identifying performance and
training issues and addressing them constructively and
progressively – and not through automatic formal discipline
for minor issues.

Officer-Involved-Shootings & Critical Incident Review
When VPD has an officer-involved shooting in which the subject is wounded or
killed, a number of responsive processes are initiated right away, both within and
outside of the Department. In this respect, the model in Vallejo and Solano
County shares much in common with jurisdictions throughout California and even
nation-wide. Taking precedence at the outset is a criminal investigation into both
the underlying incident and the police use of deadly force. The actions of each
officer who shot are scrutinized for their legality; at the end of the process, the
District Attorney’s Office renders a decision as to whether a basis exist for
prosecution exists.
While the review of the completed case, and the ultimate decision about legality,
is the purview of the District Attorney, VPD detectives play an active role in the
evidence-gathering process. Indeed, VPD and the District Attorney follow a
memorandum of understanding about their respective responsibilities.
In reviewing several case files from recent VPD officer-involved shootings, our
focus was primarily related to the administrative processes we discuss in detail
below. These are the Department’s internal assessments, not only of officer
performance (in terms of compliance with policy and training), but also other
aspects of the incident that may have implications for operational effectiveness.
These might include officer tactics, equipment, supervision, communication, and
elements of post-incident response including medical aid and community
outreach. They are also the parts over which the Department has control and sole
responsibility.

24

 The assessment of legality under criminal law is of course a critically important
element of accountability in these matters. It is also the question to which the
public tends to ascribe the most significance. But, for a variety of reasons
(including high standards for establishing illegality), the prosecution of officers
for their deadly force is extremely rare, and often unsuccessful even when cases
do go to trial. Accordingly, a police agency’s internal evaluations and adjustments
are potentially more influential in terms of accountability, learning opportunities
and impacts on future operations.
While expanding on those thoughts in detail below, we do wish to highlight a
couple of aspects of the criminal investigation process as it unfolds in Vallejo.
Both relate to the interview of the involved officer – obviously a key piece of
evidence. The first is the timing of the interviews with the involved officer, and
the second relates to whether the officer is afforded the opportunity to review
body camera recordings from the relevant incident prior to being questioned.
As for the timing of the voluntary interviews that officers give to criminal
investigators (including one or more VPD detectives and a representative from the
District Attorney’s investigations team), it was noteworthy to see that – at least in
the examples we reviewed – these occurred prior to the involved personnel going
“off shift” on the day the incident occurred. This is consistent with best
investigative practice in terms of promoting the cleanest recollection of events –
and minimizing the chances of interference (inadvertent or otherwise) with the
purity of that statement. And it is not something that occurs in every agency.
Instead, we know of several departments where the officers don’t provide an
initial statement for days after being involved in a shooting. VPD’s approach is
better, and we expect it will continue.
While we hesitate to “fix what isn’t broken” in terms of current VPD dynamics,
we encourage the Department to memorialize this practice by ensuring in policy
that this same shift interview will continue to occur – either in the form of a
voluntary statement to criminal investigators or a compelled one to the
Department administrative reviewers. Like anyone else, officers have a
constitutional right not to make statements when they are the focus of a potential
criminal case. Important to the nature of the interview that VPD officers currently
provide is that it is voluntary for this reason – which means the officer could
decline to participate. In our view, though, the timing of this statement matters so
much to the integrity of the review that the agency should be prepared to compel
an administrative interview if the declination should occur. The officer would be

25

 obligated to participate as a condition of employment (though that statement
would be excluded as evidence in the criminal case).
Current policy language focuses on the criminal interview, and includes a
reference to the possibility that the officer may not be physically, emotionally, or
otherwise not in a position to provide a voluntary statement”; in such an instance,
the guidance is to give “consideration” to a later scheduling. We recognize that
extraordinary circumstances could militate in favor of delay in rare cases, such as
when an officer is seriously injured as a result of the incident and needs medical
treatment. However, we advocate a clear emphasis on “same shift” interviews as
the standard, even if they are administrative in nature.
RECOMMENDATION 12: The Department should ensure
that officers involved in a shooting are interviewed – either
criminally or administratively – prior to the end of the shift
in which the shooting occurred.
Another debated issue relevant to Vallejo is whether officers should be allowed to
review body camera evidence prior to offering their initial statement. The
practice in VPD appears to be that the officers are invited to “view first.”
(Interestingly, not all the officers chose to in the cases we looked at.) There is a
tension between the value of refreshing an officer’s recollection vs. the value of a
“pure” statement that is not influenced by outside information. The latter is more
consistent with best investigative practice. Officers can and should review
recordings immediately after providing a pure statement in an interview setting,
and then make any corrections that might be prompted. But their initial
statements should be based exclusively on their own recollections about what
happened and their own state of mind.
We are informed that the Solano County Fatal Incident Protocol, of which the
City of Vallejo is a signatory, provides that officers be afforded to view their own
body camera videos prior to being interviewed. However, that provision of the
Solano County protocol does not conform with best practices and is in conflict
with other County-wide protocols in the Northern California area.9 Vallejo
should use its membership to urge revisiting of this issue.

9

See, for example, Santa Clara County Police Chiefs’ Association Officer Involved
Incident Guidelines (involved officers to provide statement before reviewing video
accounts of incident).

26

 RECOMMENDATION 13: The Department should obtain
a pure statement in an interview setting from officers
involved in a shooting prior to their initial viewing of any
recorded evidence from the incident and work to change any
County-wide protocols that are in conflict with best
practices.

Administrative Review Process
The Department’s “Critical Incident Review Board” (“CIRB”) is the current
method by which some significant force events are subjected to formal scrutiny.
Per policy, the Board will be convened “when the use of force by a member
results in very serious injury or death to another.” It is to be comprised of a
captain, a representative from Professional Standards, a representative from
Training, and two “subject matter experts” (sergeant or above) in the force option
at issue. The role of the Board is to conduct an administrative review of the
incident and to make recommendations to the Chief as to potential further action
in the areas of “Policy, Tactics, and Training.”
This is promising on its face. It reflects the notion that the Department recognizes
the value of careful and thorough scrutiny of such events, and we have seen
similar models in other agencies work quite well. At their best, these boards offer
a forum for comprehensive issue-spotting and productive discussion – or even
debate. They can ensure that individual performance concerns are addressed as
needed, and that the larger lessons to be gleaned from the incident are
disseminated to all personnel. It’s a combination that contributes to future
effectiveness and corresponds to the gravity of the underlying incidents
themselves.
Unfortunately, though, a process that achieves this constructive result can be
easier to devise than to execute. The impulse to be supportive in the aftermath of
a deadly force incident is as strong in some agencies as it is understandable. The
majority of officers are never involved in a shooting, and the trauma can be real
and long-lasting for those who do go through the experience.10 This reality can

10

A very different dynamic that merits consideration by management is when officers are
involved in more than one shooting in their careers. Vallejo has a few such officers
amongst its current personnel. There are certainly many pitfalls to simplistic reactions to
such a circumstance. At the same time, though, it behooves the agency and the involved
officers to make sure that this anomalous situation has been assessed collectively as well
as individually.

27

 easily lead to a “circle the wagons” mindset that treats deference to the shooting
officers as a sort of default. And this inclination is only reinforced against a
societal backdrop of heightened scrutiny and skepticism. Concerns about civil
liability comprise another factor that, in many jurisdictions, militates against
robust internal review.
The result of all this can be a culture in which careful evaluation is perceived as
morale-harming “Monday morning quarterbacking,” and any criticism or
accountability comes across as a problematic lack of support. Accordingly, some
agencies steer away from rigorous administrative review and content themselves
with a narrow focus on whether the deadly force was “in policy” – an analysis
that leans heavily on the criminal investigation and leaves other matters either
unexplored or unaddressed.
As for VPD, the current process brings the panel together at some point – usually
several months – after the incident occurs. In advance of the meeting, participants
have the opportunity to review available materials from the underlying criminal
investigation, including reports and recorded evidence. One member of the Board
guides a discussion, and the group makes collective assessments across the major
subject areas of policy, tactics and training. It then reaches consensus and makes
a collective recommendation as to a single, overarching finding about the event.
After the meeting, one attendee is entrusted with putting a draft summary
together, which is then circulated to the participants for feedback or editing before
the document is finalized and submitted for executive approval. After different
members of the command staff have the opportunity to review, it is the Chief who
issues the final word on the case (usually by adopting the Board’s
recommendation without further comment).
We looked at several memos that summarized Critical Incident Review Board
discussions and outcomes. This sampling of documents (as well as our
discussions with individuals involved in the process) gave us some basic
understanding of how – and whether – the process works in Vallejo. Both
procedurally and substantively, we saw glimmers of potential. But we also noted
a lack of consistency and some significant missed opportunities, along with a
seeming reticence to criticize shortcomings in performance. The memos were
generally quite short in their summary of the underlying Board discussion. And
even when astute observations did emerge, the mechanisms for responding to
them were often unclear. Moreover, accountability in the form of administrative
consequences was rarely a menu option the Board pursued.

28

 One example from a 2017 case was illustrative of both strengths and limitations.
Multiple officers had responded to 911 calls about a party that had devolved into a
disturbance. Upon arriving at the residence, the officers encountered individuals
fighting outside; one of the officers perceived a deadly threat to a third party and
fatally shot the aggressor. Additional issues arose in the aftermath of the shooting
in terms of stabilizing the scene and dealing with various upset individuals.
The CIRB met to discuss the case several months later, and produced its
memorandum some four months after that. The Chief’s signature closing the
review occurred four months after that: 17 months after the incident and more
than six months after the District Attorney formally declined to prosecute the use
of deadly force.11
Per the three-page memo, the CIRB recommended “Administrative Approval” of
the overall response.12 (This was the outcome in almost all the analyses we
reviewed.) However, and to the Board’s credit, the substance of the memo was
more nuanced. It featured at least a quick mention of a few different very specific
tactical concerns in terms of how officers had communicated with each other and
the individuals they encountered, the formation with which they went up an
outdoor stairway, the way one officer had handled his weapon and a flashlight at
the same time, and the post-shooting response by supervision in terms of
command and control of the scene. But the only apparent upshot of this was a
concise listing of issues that the Department should address through training.
There was no accompanying plan for doing so, or even clarity as to whether the
recommendation was directed at involved personnel or the agency as a whole.

11

We are familiar with a dynamic in which an agency delays its formal administrative
process – or at least its ultimate findings – until after the resolution of the criminal review
into the legality of deadly force. There is some justification for this deference to the
District Attorney’s process, in terms of not wanting to complicate a potential prosecution.
Ideally, though, the agency will move forward in the interim with those parts of its
response, if any, that are more time sensitive (such as an identified equipment or training
issue, or a gap in policy). And in VPD’s case, the timing (or slowness) of its CIRB
process did not seem directly or consistently related to the status of the parallel criminal
investigation.
12

As stated in the Department policy, the other choices available to the Board include
identifying a concern in the area of “Tactics/Decision Making,” raising of
“Policy/Training” issues, or finding that the force should be met with “Administrative
Disapproval” for deviations from policy and VPD expectations. This last category is
expressly reserved for “the most serious failures.”

29

 Moreover, and significantly, the Board noted that the shooting officer had failed
to activate his body-worn camera in apparent violation of Department policy. But
this did not lead to a responsive action item of any kind, including a potential
disciplinary consequence. Instead, the relevant sentence was quickly followed by
one emphasizing that the officer’s “tactics and immediate action” had saved the
life of the vulnerable third party. This latter fact may well be true. However, the
juxtaposition suggests that it makes a moot point of the body-worn camera issue,
and this “either/or” approach strikes us as overly simplistic and flawed.
In short, we see a number of ways that the CIRB model does not take full
advantage of its structural potential or the analytical skills of its participants.
These include the following:

13

•

Constrained Scope of Review: The Board often appears to focus on the
use of force itself in narrow ways that limit learning opportunities and
accountability options in the aftermath of critical incidents. The menu of
findings available to the Board is also problematically limited and
collective in nature, which flattens assessments into an “all or nothing”
approach at the expense of productive nuance.13

•

Limited Administrative Investigation: The lack of a separate
administrative investigation process – including separate interviews with
involved personnel to complement materials from the criminal case –
inhibits the Board’s ability to make effective judgements across the
optimal range. It has seemingly also contributed to a paradigm in which
appropriate accountability for policy violations is rare in the context of a
critical incident.

•

Timing Concerns: As discussed above, the different phases of
the process can take months to unfold, with gaps not only
before the meeting but also in the subsequent stages. With no
clear guidance in policy and no discernible protocols for when

Our understanding is that a representative from Internal Affairs monitors the interviews
that involved officers give as part of the criminal investigation process, and has the
opportunity to submit supplemental questions bearing on administrative matters as
needed. This strikes us as better than nothing – but also as inherently awkward. We
encourage a process that features separate administrative interviews as a standard
practice.

30

 the different phases will happen,14 there are long and avoidable
delays before the administrative review is finalized. This
vitiates the effectiveness of the review in a couple of ways: by
leaving involved officers in an unwelcome state of uncertainty,
and by slowing the implementation of agreed-upon remedial
measures that could influence the whole Department.
•

Lack of Concrete Follow-Through: Even on those occasions when the
Board identified specific concerns with implications for training,
supervision, and individual officer performance, the documentation was
generally lacking in terms of concrete actions items and subsequent
corroboration. We do not rule out the possibility that beneficial
interventions occurred. But, in our experience, a protocol for
memorializing particular ideas and then confirming that they came to
fruition is very helpful in actualizing good intentions, especially in an
agency where the press of daily business could easily allow things to slip
through cracks.

•

Role of Legal Counsel: The terse nature of the memos produced by the
CIRB perhaps reflects concerns that more detail (and a more wide-ranging
or pointed evaluation) would be problematic in terms of liability exposure
– a dynamic that may also relate to the regular (but not automatic)
participation of a representative from the City Attorney’s office in the
meetings themselves. We recognize the potential benefits of having a
lawyer monitoring the process and serving as a resource for the Board’s
deliberations. However, our view is that the best role for counsel in this
context is as an advisor, rather than a shaper of the discussion’s
parameters and consequences. To the extent the Vallejo model is
deviating from this, we would encourage the Department and City to
reconsider.

We strongly advocate a shift in philosophy that would make holistic, rigorous
assessment of the entirety of an officer-involved shooting (or other critical
incident) a routine and expected component of VPD’s administrative response.
This would include looking at all aspects of a given encounter with an eye toward
issues that merit further investigation or redress. Such a review should necessarily
14

An exception is for the command level approval process once the memo has been
finalized by the CIRB. That cover sheet expressly calls for – and tracks – a two-day
turnaround for each listed person, which we find to be a simple and effective approach.

31

 encompass the pre-event planning/decision-making, the tactics leading up to the
climactic moments themselves, and the effectiveness of any post-incident
responses, including the timely provision of medical assistance and crime scene
integrity.15
Ideally, in our view, the Department would consider the implications of each
critical incident through a phased response. Members of its Professional
Standards Division would put together an initial presentation for Board members
and executives (including the Chief) within a week or two of the incident; the goal
at this stage would be to focus less on individual accountability16 than on
identification of potential issues in policy, training, supervision, tactics, or
community response that are time sensitive and/or broadly relevant to agency
operations. These are matters that could and should be addressed quickly – even
during the pendency of the criminal review. This meeting should generate
individual “action items” that are assigned to specific people for completion, a
process that the Professional Standards Division could help track.
A second phase of more comprehensive administrative investigation – again,
performed by Professional Standards Division personnel – could then address
individual accountability. Performance issues that implicate policy – even if
separate from the legitimacy or justification of the force itself – should be
addressed through the discipline process. And administrative interviews of
involved personnel should be utilized as a supplement to the criminal
investigation and to provide a fuller picture of tactics, decision-making,
supervision, and other relevant aspects of the case.
The next gathering of the CIRB – at the completion of the administrative
investigation – could be used as a final opportunity to assess the full incident and
to craft the different aspects of the Department’s response. Moving away from
the current paradigm of limited choices would preserve the flexibility needed to
address each incident’s particulars in appropriately tailored ways.

15

One example of this latter category would be involved personnel’s responses to “rescue
mode” after the incapacitation of a subject. The counter-intuitive aspects of this
transition – from reacting to a perceived threat to providing aid for that threat’s source –
make it especially important for an agency to train and reinforce this concept where
possible.
16

The exception would be for an incident that quickly exposed clear issues about officer
actions as a matter of law, policy, or fitness for duty.

32

 With due respect to officer sensitivity and concerns about deleterious “secondguessing,” we believe critical incidents such as shootings are intrinsically worthy
of the highest levels of attention from law enforcement – as much for the sake of
future operations as past accountability. And we believe that the process can be
undertaken in a way that removes stigma and promotes constructive
reinforcement and remediation.
Importantly, the CIRB memos from two more recent cases reflect a significant
shift in paradigm and a move toward the comprehensive evaluations we endorse.
In one, the then-Chief rejected the recommendation of “Administration Approval”
that the Board had agreed upon, and cited two specific areas in which the
evidence showed potential policy violations on the part of the officer. The first
related to activation of the body-worn camera, and the other to the requirements
for conducting a foot pursuit. While these matters were distinct from the deadly
force’s justification, there were key issues in their own right – the sorts of thing
that might contribute to how confrontations unfold and whether there were
realistic alternatives to the ultimate consequence.
In the other case, the Board itself produced a memo that transcended its
predecessors in striking ways. While covering a vehicle pursuit that involved
several officers and ended in the fatal shooting of an armed and aggressive
subject, the Board members found the officers to have acted within policy. But
they identified several tactical elements that deviated from training and/or
compromised officer safety. It also recognized potential training opportunities for
the involved personnel and the Department as a whole. Finally, it offered
concrete and applicable recommendations for managerial responses.
While some of this may be a function of that incident’s own unique dynamics (not
all cases are the same in their level of situational complexity or tactical nuance), it
is interesting to note that the memo was written – and approved – within a few
weeks of the new Chief’s arrival.17 While we believe that further structural
adjustments would be beneficial, and urge the Department to consider them, the
apparent new vision for the CIRB is a step in the right direction.

17

Also interesting is that the Board’s initial meeting about the case had occurred
approximately one year earlier. While the delay in finalizing the memo is curious (and
something we discuss below), it also suggests that other panel discussions over the years
may have featured similarly thoughtful dialogue – but did not lead to documented
consequences or a comparable level of responsive action.

33

 RECOMMENDATION 14: The Department should change
its protocol for reviewing critical incidents by empowering
Professional Standards Division, working in conjunction
with the Critical Incident Review Board, to conduct a
holistic review and evaluation of all critical incidents to
encompass the performance of involved personnel (including
non-force users) as well as issues of policy, training, tactics,
supervision, equipment, and/or incident aftermath.
RECOMMENDATION 15: The Department should guide
the CIRB’s analysis by requiring specific findings in each of
the following categories: pre-event planning and decisionmaking, tactics, and post-event response (including timely
transition to rescue mode).
RECOMMENDATION 16: The Department should
provide the CIRB with greater flexibility to tailor its
outcome recommendations across a range of possible
categories, rather than limiting it to a blanket finding about
the incident as a whole.
RECOMMENDATION 17: The Department should
consider ways to conduct its critical incident review in timeappropriate phases, beginning with an initial debrief and
issue-spotting and continuing to a more thorough
examination of administrative issues including officer
performance.
RECOMMENDATION 18: The Department should set
specific goals in writing for the timely completion of
different phases of the critical incident review process, to
make sure that the appropriate responses and remediations
are occurring in as meaningful and productive a way as
possible.
RECOMMENDATION 19: The Department should develop
a separate administrative investigative package, including
separate administrative interviews of involved personnel, to
help the CIRB to identify and resolve issues related not only
to the use of force but also collateral matters that merit
formal attention.

34

 RECOMMENDATION 20: The CIRB should play a direct
role in the identification and resolution of individual policy
violations or other performance issues associated with a
critical incident.
RECOMMENDATION 21: VPD and the City should
clarify the role of legal counsel in the CIRB process, so that
input on questions of law and liability does not come at the
expense of rigorous analysis and necessary remedial
measures.

Other Uses of Force
Although deadly force events are understandably in a category of their own in
terms of the scrutiny they receive, every use of physical force constitutes an
exercise of police power that warrants attention and some level of accountability.
This observation is, or should be, an unremarkable one. Law enforcement’s job is
a challenging and often dangerous one, and the ability to use a reasonable level of
force in order to overcome resistance or protect self or others against a physical
threat is a necessary component of officers’ authority. By its very nature, though,
force constitutes a significant imposition on those individuals who are subjected
to it.
The deadly force incidents we discuss above are the most obvious manifestations
of this concept. They deserve the distinctive attention that they received from the
public and the justice system, and our recommendations are consistent with that
reality. But any use of force – no matter how minor or how fully warranted – is
something that a contemporary officer is expected to report, document, and take
ownership of. And when there are questions about the necessity or extent of a
given force application, those matters deserve careful investigation and, where
applicable, responsive consequences.
What we would add to that baseline assessment is the notion that all force
incidents deserve at least some level of holistic scrutiny that goes beyond legality
or technical compliance with policy (as crucial as both those standards are). We
have reviewed many hundreds of force incidents over the years. The
overwhelming majority of them have been deemed by their agencies to be “in
policy” – and we frequently concur with those findings. At the same time,
though, a much larger percentage of those cases raise one or more issues that are
deserving of, or would benefit from, some sort of managerial feedback. This

35

 could be related to supervision, officer tactics, teamwork and coordination, choice
of force option, equipment, policy, or some combination of the above.
In other words, we encourage agencies to push past the simple dichotomy of “in
policy or not” when it comes to managerial intervention. The point is not to
undermine officers or strain for ways to criticize them. Instead, it is to reinforce
important notions that law enforcement should always bear in mind: that force
matters, that avoiding it when possible through de-escalation or effective tactics is
good, and that there is value to reinforcing effective performance and remediating
where appropriate.
There is room for improvement in both thoroughness and consistency in VPD’s
use of force review processes. Some of this is a casualty of the strains on time
and resources we note elsewhere. Some of it, though, is a managerial judgment
that the officers are not “heavy-handed,” and that the volume and nature of the
force incidents is an expected by-product of the encounters with volatile
individuals that the officers regularly have.
The following impressions emerged from the various parts of our evaluation:
•

VPD officers use force regularly, and consider it more a function of their
challenging work environment than a philosophy or culture of physical
aggression.18

•

VPD officers are conscious of and well-trained about the various legal and
policy justifications for force.

•

These principles provide guidance in the field and inform the officers’
framing of their own conduct in reports.

•

The supervisory review of force incidents is less formally robust and
consistent than it could be.

One Internal Affairs investigation we reviewed is illustrative. The case involved
a supervisor who responded to an unfolding incident and used force to take an
individual into custody, but failed to report it; the force came to the Department’s
attention as a result of the man’s complaint. A VPD force expert formally
reviewed the incident as part of the Internal Affairs case – and determined that
18

As one high-ranking member of the agency explained it, “A lot of people want to fight
us.” Assuming this is true, the challenge for contemporary officers is to use skills to
prevent belligerent individuals from dictating that result.

36

 there had been technical justification for what occurred. This analysis was
consistent with the case’s final outcome, in which the force allegation ended up
being “exonerated” while the supervisor was disciplined for the failure to report.
The memo prepared by the VPD force expert is thoughtful, detailed, and
convincing. And it does what it was asked to do: make an assessment of the
“objective reasonableness” of the force given the totality of the circumstances. In
our view, though, this case raised issues of tactics and decision-making that
merited attention – and that the narrow emphasis on justifications left unresolved.
These included the supervisor’s assertive and “hands-on” insertion of himself into
the response and some of the communication choices that ended up antagonizing
the subject.
Another case involving allegations of improper force, this time involving an
officer’s off-duty confrontation with a belligerent individual – followed a similar
path: a force expert conducted a meticulous and plausible assessment of the
officer’s physical actions and the justification for each, but left aside “bigger
picture” issues about the advisability of engaging physically in the first place.
In fairness, it should be noted that the memos in question were deliberately
narrow in focus and were only components of broader investigations – ones that
did find other policy violations apart from the force. But they also correlated with
our larger impressions of how supervisors viewed force events. The technical
aspects of the justification analysis were indeed persuasive. However, there is a
“can’t see the forest through the trees” quality when the larger context – including
communication skills, judgment, tactics, and other options – is not regularly
pursued.
As with other areas we evaluated, any limitations in the Department’s approach
seem to be about culture and practice rather than capability. Our sense is that
VPD’s ability to train and to critically review force is considerable – as reflected
in the “Force Options Team” that has emerged over the years as a valued resource
for patrol personnel. This group, which is overseen by a high-ranking Department
member, consists of some 15 individuals who have gone through extensive
training and developed expertise in matters related to force. They serve on the
team as a collateral to their regular assignments.
As members, they assess individual incidents and extract lessons for the
development of training scenarios; these are shared with Department members
during several designated windows throughout the year. The Force Options
Team’s influence is also reflected in the training curricula that they compile for

37

 VPD personnel’s mandatory sessions throughout the year; we had the opportunity
to review several of the “lesson plans” that were developed for these blocks of
instruction and found them to be thorough and thoughtful. We were especially
impressed, for example, by how often “de-escalation” principles were
emphasized.19
This concept promotes a mindset in which officers look for opportunities to
reduce the potential for physical intervention in a given encounter through a range
of techniques that emphasize caution, patience, effective communication, and
sound tactics. It recognizes that just because officers can assert their authority
physically in a given situation doesn’t mean that they have to, or should. And,
increasingly, efforts at de-escalation have become an expectation that comprises
part of the analysis as to a force application’s “reasonableness” under law and
policy.
The Department’s emphasis on these skills in its training cycles is a positive
development. And, to its credit, it has very recently changed its Use of Force
policy to give unequivocal prominence to de-escalation principles. The new
section on De-Escalation (Policy 300.4) seems exemplary in the philosophy it
articulates and the responsibility it imposes on officers to help “avoid physical
confrontations and increase the likelihood of voluntary compliance or
cooperation” where possible. Our collateral hope is that a focus on these concepts
will also become a regular part of VPD’s supervisorial assessment of individual
incidents; it has not seemed to be a point of emphasis in the past.
Finally, it is also our understanding that the Force Options Team members
perform the collateral function of consulting with officers who have used force,
assisting them with the documentation of their actions. Our review did not extend
to comparing officers’ written accounts with other available evidence in the
context of specific lower level force incidents. From a distance, though, we see
this as a coin with two sides: the benefit of expertise when it comes to producing
detailed descriptions of what happened and why, and the potential pitfalls of
“coaching” that focuses on justifications and does not necessarily encompass or
promote broader scrutiny.

19

The robust training component stands in significant contrast to the currently less
formally robust review component; i.e., whether the use of force being assessed was
consistent with training and Departmental expectations. We advocate for discussion and
application of how officers are trained regarding de-escalation principles to whether that
training was a component of any use of force in the field.

38

 We did not see formalized examples of this scrutiny occurring at other levels of
the Department. Our understanding is that force incidents are subject to review
“up the chain”; supervisors up to the captain level are notified and given the
chance to assess force applications, and can direct further investigation or other
interventions at their discretion. Moreover, Department policy 300.7 expressly
sets forth a number of duties under the heading of “Supervisor Responsibility”
that promote evidence-gathering and assessment in potentially effective ways.
But our requests for examples of any “Use of Force Report” that emerged from
this process did not produce any specific responsive materials from VPD. And
Department executives that we spoke to, while confident that force events did
receive worthwhile attention, acknowledged that the process was not as
routinized, rigorous, or comprehensive at it might be.
The Department also would benefit from standardizing – and building upon – its
existing approaches when it comes to the review of individual force uses by its
officers. Ensuring that force is not excessive (or otherwise unjustified) is
extremely important as a baseline, but less than optimal as a stopping point.
Accordingly, we recommend a protocol that looks at individual force events more
holistically and with a broader range of potential interventions.
We recognize the challenges of limited resources, and the commitment that any
additional mandates can represent. But we also believe that a great deal of good
can emerge from a higher level of formalization and consistency – and from a
cultural approach that looks at review as an opportunity rather than as a burden or
a sign of distrust.
RECOMMENDATION 22: The Department should develop
a protocol for standardizing a specific and documented
supervisorial evaluation of every use of force.
RECOMMENDATION 23: The Department should ensure
that the assistance of the Force Options team with officer
report-writing does not become a tool for retroactive
justification of questionable force deployments or a basis for
truncating appropriate scrutiny.
RECOMMENDATION 24: The Department’s analysis of
each use of force should include affirmative managerial
determinations as to whether the force was in policy, and
whether training, tactical, or other considerations were
identified.

39

 RECOMMENDATION 25: Each use of force should be
reviewed and evaluated to determine whether de-escalation
techniques were considered or implemented prior to the
application of force, and/or why they were not.
RECOMMENDATION 26: The Department should
incorporate its current policies for supervisory review,
including detailed evidence gathering by supervisors where
applicable, into this process.
RECOMMENDATION 27: The Department should create
formal mechanisms for documenting and tracking any action
items that emerge from this process, in order to ensure
appropriate follow-through.

Complaints and Allegations of Misconduct
One of the hallmarks of a police agency’s effectiveness and community standing
is its responsiveness to allegations of officer misconduct. There are several
components that contribute to the substance of this responsiveness. They include
the following:
•

Does the agency facilitate the acceptance of complaints from the public
through clear communication and an inclusive intake system?

•

Does the agency investigate allegations of misconduct in thorough, fair,
and appropriate ways?

•

Does the agency uphold its own standards apart from external prompting
or allegations?

•

Does the agency view its discipline process as a source of potentially
useful feedback that extends beyond individual accountability
determinations?

•

Does the agency promote trust through transparency and notification
regarding its processes and the outcome of complaints?

As discussed below, we found the Department’s process to be sound in many of
the above respects, while noting occasional concerns and areas for potential
improvement.

40

 In reaching these impressions, we looked at approximately 40 samples of
completed misconduct cases from recent years. These were in three main
categories: “Internal Affairs” investigations of more serious allegations (whether
initiated by the Department or a member of the public), “Citizen Complaints,” and
“Inquiry Resolutions” – a category reserved for the handling of complaints that do
not warrant further investigation because, as alleged, are not matters of
misconduct but rather service concerns.

Intake of/Receptivity to External Complaints
It’s a lot to expect of police agencies that they embrace the citizen complaint
process: the most legitimate complaints are the product of regrettable mistakes
(or worse), while the less legitimate ones are often asserted with the most
persistence and enthusiasm. Each of them represents extra work and an aggrieved
member of the public – neither of which is desirable for any organization.
Ideally, though, police agencies take a deep breath and make the best of this
process. They accept the importance of the responsibility, execute it with
integrity and diligence, and recognize its potential benefits as a source of useful
feedback.
The number of complaints a police agency receives from members of the public
can be difficult to interpret in terms of significance. In short, fewer is not
inherently better – a small number might be less a matter of overall “customer
satisfaction” or flawless policing than a lack of awareness about (or trust in) the
process – or even resistance on the part of the agency to accepting the complaints
in the first place. Accordingly, we look instead at the extent to which a
department seems to solicit feedback and makes it easy for people to share a
concern; then we assess the legitimacy of the subsequent investigation and
resolution.
To its credit, Vallejo’s approach to external complaints is inclusive and
reasonably well-publicized. It allows members of the public a variety of methods
to share their issues, makes written forms (complete with explanatory
information) available in the lobby of headquarters, and accepts anonymous
complaints (while acknowledging – with justification – that such matters can be
more difficult to investigate or otherwise pursue). And the Department’s website
features a dedicated link to the complaint process.
VPD also takes a reasonable approach to addressing public concerns through
direct communication and explanation where applicable. This arena is

41

 documented most clearly in the “Inquiry Resolution” files we reviewed. These
memos capture the nature of the complaint and explain in sufficient detail how the
matter was addressed by the handling supervisor. Importantly, these individuals
are taking responsibility for their determination and the basis for it.
When it comes to interacting with an unhappy member of the public, there can be
a fine line between a constructive conversation that clarifies misunderstanding
and a “smoothing over” or “stonewalling” session that may successfully
neutralize the complainant but doesn’t address an underlying problem. In our
view, the complainant’s subjective frame of mind should be important but not
wholly determinative of the agency’s response. A legitimate complaint or
misconduct issue deserves attention even if the watch commander somehow
mollifies the individual reporting party; similarly, an unreasonable complaint only
merits so much investigation, no matter how insistent the citizen. For this reason,
the documentation within an “Inquiry Resolution” strikes us as a fine balance
between efficiency and accountability. And we are largely in agreement with the
appropriateness of the outcomes as explained.
We also noted one case in which a woman strongly objected to VPD’s handling of
a custody exchange that she was involved with – an encounter that ended in her
arrest. In this incident, though, body-camera footage appeared to support the
officers’ actions. When the investigator afforded her the chance to watch the
recording and offer her perspective in more detail, she was notably chastened by
the video and the way it deviated from her recollection – a factor that presumably
made her more accepting when the officers were ultimately exonerated.
In short, several of the complaints we reviewed not only “got to the right place” in
terms of outcome, but also featured constructive, clarifying interactions between
the involved party and VPD. This is not always attainable. But it should
certainly be an underlying goal of the complaint process, and VPD should
continue to nurture this aspect of its response.

Notification Letters
Part of any police agency’s statutory obligation in responding to citizen
complaints is to notify the complainant in writing of the outcome within 30 days
of the investigation’s completion. At the same time, though, confidentiality
protections for officers limit the amount of information and detail that can be
shared. (For example, if an allegation is “sustained,” the agency must say so – but
cannot elaborate on the specific consequence that the officer received.)

42

 Some agencies have responded to these limitations by issuing concise letters that
meet legal obligations but are even less personalized and detailed than they might
be. This can leave complainants understandably frustrated. Filing an earnest
complaint, waiting for several months, and then receiving a short notification that
the investigation ultimately was Unfounded (with no further explanation) is a
recipe for dissatisfaction.
Accordingly, we encourage police agencies to make the effort to “show their
work” to the extent possible, and at least take steps that can help assure
complainants their concerns were understood and taken seriously. This could
include a recounting of the allegation itself (which obviously helps to personalize
the response), generalized description of the investigative steps that provided the
basis for the outcome (which helps to show due diligence) and some effort at
conveying a recognition of the complainant’s perspective.
Vallejo’s notification letters were often quite good in this regard. This was not,
however, universally the case. There were occasional disconnects between the
outcome of the investigation and the notification that was provided (Such as an
“Unfounded” notice for a case that could not be fully pursued because of a lack of
identified subjects.) Others of the letters were notably terse. And, in at least a
couple of instances, we saw the presumably well-intentioned but curious phrasing
“Again, on behalf of the police department, I apologize you felt you had a bad
experience.” (Emphasis added.) At least two of these appeared in letters about a
complaint that was sustained, which meant the experience was objectively bad. In
another, the allegations were refuted, which suggests that the apology was
unwarranted (and therefore potentially condescending).
More positively, we saw other examples of letters that made reference to specific
allegations, descriptions of the investigation, and/or a sincere straightforward
apology. These are small but creditable gestures that are worth the investment in
time. And we encourage the Department to achieve this even more
comprehensively and consistently with future complaints.
RECOMMENDATION 28: The Department should build
on its intermittently successful efforts to make complaint
notification letters as detailed and useful to recipients as
possible.
Along these same lines, we would also encourage the Department to share with
the public more information about the number of complaints and internal
investigations, the nature of the allegations, and the outcomes of its cases each

43

 year. Transparency in this regard has traditionally been quite limited across law
enforcement, stemming from both the confidentiality rights of officers and a
perception that sharing this data (and the attendant acknowledgement of
shortcomings) does not redound to an agency’s benefit. But this is changing for a
few reasons. Not only is the public’s scrutiny and expectation level higher than
before, but law enforcement is increasingly recognizing that more openness can
be a vehicle for increased trust. Accordingly, VPD should look for ways to offer
the public more insight into its internal processes.
This same commitment to transparency should also exist with regard to uses of
force. VPD should follow other police agencies by regularly publishing the
number and types of uses of force periodically.
RECOMMENDATION 29: The Department should compile
and periodically publicly produce aggregate data about the
number of complaints received, the number of internal
investigations conducted, and the number and type of uses of
force so as to offer greater insight into the nature and
effectiveness of its accountability measures.

Investigative Issues
In the cases we assessed, there were numerous individual moments of effective,
resourceful investigation and thoughtful analysis of the accumulated evidence.
We saw instances in which misconduct allegations were sustained and appropriate
consequences administered. On the other hand, some case files revealed
limitations in the scoping of issues, thoroughness of investigation, and timeliness
or efficacy of resolution. Occasionally, attributes and deficiencies were
discernible within the same case.
One such example began with an arrestee’s complaint of an item that had been
lost by the Department at some point after the booking process. Within two
weeks, the investigator had conducted interviews, reviewed surveillance camera
video and documentary evidence, confirmed that the item had existed and was
missing, identified the handling officer, and determined that there had been gaps
in the Department’s required protocol for collecting and recording of property.
The summary memo documents the officer’s own “corrective action” plan of
learning from the incident and recording future such transactions on body camera
– a useful corrective measure of the sort that effective systems emphasize.
Finally, and impressively, the case memo also recounts a timely conversation with

44

 the complainant in which the loss was acknowledged and the Department’s
assistance with the City claim process was offered.
Still, there were curious aspects to VPD’s overall approach in the same matter.
For one, the possibility that the item had been taken (instead of simply not logged
properly and misplaced) was seemingly never considered and was not an apparent
component of the investigation. Secondly, the case was not finalized (in the form
of written notification to the complainant and a responsive consequence for the
officer) until some eight months later. The reasons for this delay were not at all
discernible from the case file.
Nor was this the only example of this timeliness concern. For instance, it took
approximately nine months in one case to sustain an allegation of negligent
evidence handling – for an investigation which consisted primarily of one
interview in which the subject took full responsibility for the mistake. In another
case, an officer’s failure to conduct a pat down search of a suspect (who was later
determined to be carrying a firearm as well as contraband) took seven months to
finalize after the completion of the investigation.
It is true that, per state statute, agencies have a full year to potentially issue
discipline from the time they first become aware of an allegation. Meeting this
deadline has been an issue in other agencies we have evaluated; it should be noted
that we are not aware of instances in which VPD forfeited its right to impose a
consequence. But, absent an investigation of such complexity that the whole time
is needed for effective evidence-gathering and review, a Department should
prioritize the efficient resolution of its investigations.
Here, while the investigative work appears to be getting done in a relatively
timely way, the final phases of the process unfold quite slowly and for reasons
that are not readily apparent. And even if they were explainable, it nonetheless
weakens some of the constructive value of a discipline case when so much time
passes between the problem and the ultimate resolution or consequence.20

20

In the training we regularly do with police managers from agencies all over the state,
they consistently cite the slow pace of administrative investigations as a key factor in
undermining the rank and file’s attitudes toward the discipline process. Even when the
allegations are ultimately not sustained, officers describe the experience of being “under
a cloud” as inherently stressful – and the mere pendency of investigations can disrupt
hopes for assignment changes or promotions. And, on the other side of the coin, an
untimely resolution can also contribute to a complainant’s suspicion that the agency is
not taking the matter seriously.

45

 As a result, agencies have developed internal deadlines for completion of
investigations and the review process. In particularly complex cases or where
there is unavoidable cause for delay, the deadlines can be overridden by
supervisory approval.
RECOMMENDATION 30: The Department should develop
written internal deadlines to complete an investigation and
review process and require supervisory approval for
deviation from those deadlines.

Thoroughness of Investigation/Scope of Review
In our review of individual case files, we saw investigative work that was often
thoughtful and meticulous. At times, though, we also noted gaps in thoroughness
that potentially undermined the outcomes of cases. One recent example involved
a juvenile subject who contacted the Department after being confronted and
searched by a pair of VPD officers. In spite of describing a particular date and
time – and specifying that it had been one male and one female officer– the
complainant’s information went nowhere, and the case was ultimately closed out
with a finding of “Unfounded.” It is true that the complainant and his father did
not respond to several attempts at re-contacting them, and that there was no
documentation of any such contact to support the claim. Still, it was curious that
more effort had not been made to match the duty roster for the day with those
details that were available, and thereby ensure that officers were performing in a
manner consistent with VPD expectations.
We also noted two separate instances in which witness officers were not
interviewed about encounters that had produced complaints of excessive force.
Even though relevant body-camera evidence was available, the perspective of
these individuals would presumably have been instructive.
Due diligence is an obvious component of credible and effective investigation.
We reiterate that VPD’s work in this arena was often solid and even impressive.
But we also advocate a commitment to rigor and thoroughness in the framing and
resolution of issues.
RECOMMENDATION 31: The Department should
evaluate its individual misconduct investigations to ensure
that all relevant issues are identified and pursued to a
reasonable extent, including a written standard requiring
formal interviews with witness officers.

46

 Level of Discipline
We noted several examples of cases in which the Department properly established
that allegations were sustained by the evidence and that a consequence was
warranted. However, the nature of that consequence was at times surprisingly
minor.21 This included low-level suspensions – or less, including “documented
counseling” or mere training recommendations – for lapses that seemed fairly
significant.
It is true that discipline is intended to be corrective instead of punitive, and that –
short of a violation for which termination or demotion are necessary outcomes –
the severity of the remedial measure is a matter of discretion, appropriately
subject to a range of factors. Nor is our inclination toward more significant
consequences a matter of hostility or retribution. But we do think there are ways
in which outcomes that seem lenient can be problematic.
One concern is that the agency is narrowing its options for progressive discipline
in response to similar future offenses that might arise: a low baseline for
remediation not only makes less of an impression the first time but has an impact
on the potential severity of a subsequent intervention. And “light” discipline also
has a messaging function that may not be consistent with management’s goals for
conveying its standards and expectations.
We recognize that this dynamic is partly cultural and a reflection of overall
perceptions about the discipline process. We are familiar with some agencies in
which written reprimands are commonplace and taken in stride, and with others
that consider a written reprimand a disconcerting rebuke. It depends in part on
what officers are used to, and it is possible that VPD is accomplishing it goals
under the current paradigm. But we are concerned that the light level of
discipline at VPD is less about the gravity of the misconduct than a reluctance to
alienate or discourage the involved officers – and their peers. This is not entirely
consistent with a healthy process – one that takes accountability seriously,
administers proportional discipline, and recognizes such interventions as
necessary and constructive.22

21

The actual impact of suspensions in Vallejo is further mitigated by the option officers
have to use vacation days or compensatory time to “serve” their discipline.
22
Some agencies have developed disciplinary matrices that set out the expected discipline
range as an effort to build consistency and notice to employees about what discipline
might be expected based on the nature of the transgression.

47

 RECOMMENDATION 32: The Department should
evaluate its levels of discipline for sustained policy
violations to ensure that the proper amount of remediation is
occurring.

Other Review Protocols
Civil Claims
When a person wishes to be compensated for a loss of any kind that was caused
by the allegedly improper actions of a government entity, the submitting of a legal
claim for damages is a first step. This doesn’t always resolve the issue. But, in
part because the goal is to settle such matters as efficiently as possible, it is at
least a required precursor to filing a lawsuit in state court.23
When such claims involve the actions of law enforcement, different jurisdictions
have different models for what happens next. The police agency generally has
some role, at least in information-gathering. But there’s a wide range in terms of
how much the agency’s insights and analyses shape the jurisdiction’s legal
response – and how much the agency itself treats the claim as a forum for selfscrutiny.
We recognize that legal counsel and risk managers need to maintain ultimate
control over the decision-making in such instances; it is their area of expertise,
after all, and their distance from the law enforcement perspective is often
advantageous in terms of objectivity. But we do think there is value in soliciting
meaningful input from the police before that decision is made. And we have long
advocated a model in which the police themselves treat legal claims as a form of
public feedback that merits attention – a sort of “complaint with a price tag”
attached.
To their shared credit, the City and VPD appear to have a refined protocol for
formally engaging the Department once a relevant claim is made. We looked at
five samples of their process from recent filings. Once received by the City, the
claim is forwarded to the Department and assigned to an Internal Affairs
23

By statute, the government entity has a set amount of time to respond to a claim, and
can either accept it, deny it, or do nothing (which has the effect of a denial and allows the
claimant to proceed to litigation). Should the aggrieved choose federal court as the venue,
there is no corresponding claim requirement; he/she may file a complaint in court
immediately.

48

 reviewer, who has a set deadline to conduct an assessment and submit a
recommendation memo. That memo is copied to the various City individuals
with risk management responsibilities (including someone in the City Attorney’s
Office).
The claims we looked at covered an interesting range. In one, the reviewer
looked into the matter, corroborated the claimant’s version, and recommended a
refund of impound fees. At the other end of the spectrum involving a claim for
considerable damages for an alleged false arrest, the Department had already
conducted a formal administrative investigation and determined – with the
assistance of body-camera recordings – that the involved personnel had acted
properly in handling the claimant’s arrest. A denial of the claim was accordingly
recommended.
Both results made sense to us, and seemingly featured the collateral benefit of
prompting useful introspection on the part of VPD. It’s a paradigm that ideally is
repeated across the board. But in one of the five samples we looked at, an
allegation of false arrest resulted in no determination – and no documented effort
at assessing the underlying circumstances or the claim’s legitimacy. Instead, the
memo cited guidance from the City Attorney’ Office in refraining from weighing
in.
There may well be some strategic merit to this approach on those occasions when
it is used. However, we consider it critically important that concerns about
liability exposure do not undermine or interfere with a police agency’s
willingness and rigor in taking a hard look at its own actions – and following up
with individual accountability or other remedial measures as needed. In the same
way that legal counsel can benefit the CIRB process but should not constrain it,
we encourage the City and VPD to ensure that the Department’s role in the civil
claim process is appropriately balancing legal concerns with internal rigor and
necessary reform.
RECOMMENDATION 33: The Department should
continue to use the civil claims process as a vehicle for
assessment of its own performance, and should refrain from
allowing liability concerns impede the rigor and
thoroughness of this process.

49

 Evaluations
A couple of protocols that, in our experience, are difficult to execute effectively
relate to the formal evaluation of employees in a police agency. Various obstacles
to meaningful feedback exist. The process is labor-intensive when done well, and
the constant flow of other work in conjunction with the various incentives to
avoid contention often result in perfunctory end products that have little real
value. Worse, they can create a record that glosses over actual performance
issues and makes it harder for the agency to take responsive action if and when it
needs to in the future.
Our familiarity with the tepid efforts of other agencies means that VPD’s robust
approach is especially noteworthy. Specifically, we refer to annual performance
evaluations that all employees receive, and the extensive daily assessments that
trainee officers receive from their field training officers in the early stages their
employment. We looked at recent examples of each and were impressed by what
we saw.
As for the annual performance evaluations, VPD’s format combines different
elements in the service of a specific, personalized, and constructive profile. There
are pages that call for a supervisor with direct knowledge of the employee to
make individual “check the box” findings across several different categories, a
narrative section that seemed thoughtful and nuanced, and opportunities for the
officers themselves to recount their accomplishments and share goals.
The samples we looked at had several strengths – and largely avoided familiar
pitfalls such as “grade inflation” as a path of least resistance.24 While several
officers received overall ratings of “Exceeds Expectations,” not all did – and
supervisors who gave the higher marks tended to support them with persuasive
explanation rather than letting the checks speak for themselves. Individual
strengths as well as potential improvement areas were highlighted, and seemingly
provided recipients with a genuinely useful document. We hope the examples we
saw were representative of VPD’s standards, and that the Department will keep
up the excellent work.
As for the ongoing training evaluations of new officers as they acclimate to patrol,
VPD’s approach is as structured, rigorous, and thorough as any we’ve seen. The
Field Training Officer (“FTO”) cadre provides lengthy reports in which an
24

The annual evaluations also appear to have been completed in a timely fashion, which
is a common problem area that VPD has done well to avoid.

50

 individual day’s calls for service and specific training focal points are recounted
in detail, along with candid assessments of the trainee’s performance. There are
also “end of segment” reports which offer a more cumulative assessment before a
trainee moves on to a new phase.
The FTOs come across on the page as knowledgeable, dedicated, and exacting.
These are obviously assets when it comes to preparing new officers to succeed.
The mix of compliments and critiques was nicely balanced – and appeared to be
constructive in spirit and useful in practice for the trainees and Department
management.
In all, we had a high regard for this program, from what we could glean, and
commend VPD accordingly.

51

 52

This page intentionally left blank.

PART FOUR:

Other Operational Issues

Officer-Involved Shootings:
Community Outreach and Transparency
There is no police activity that has a greater potential for community division,
upheaval, and erosion of trust than the use of deadly force. Legacies of racial
discrimination that persevere in contemporary life have particular resonance in the
justice system. When combined with decades of problematic enforcement history
in minority communities, the recent series of high-profile national cases involving
police shootings has contributed to heightened tensions – and expectations for
greater accountability.
It’s also true each police shooting – whether notorious or not – has potentially
traumatic effects on the involved subject’s family, friends, and wider
neighborhood. It raises fears, questions, and larger concerns – particularly when
the incident involves a person of color.
As discussed above, Vallejo has not been immune to this dynamic. Controversial
deadly force incidents have resulted in demonstrations that reflect fundamental
perceptions: that officers are too willing to shoot, that they treat minority subjects
more harshly, and that they are immune from objective investigation or
punishment. Above, we have discussed our recommendations about VPD’s
internal review processes at some length, in part with the goal of reducing the
likelihood of future uses of deadly force. However, there is also room for
improvement in how VPD and the City respond publicly to such incidents when
they occur. We made the following observations and recommendations:

Designate a Family Liaison
When a deadly force incident occurs, there is obviously a significant amount of
responsive activity – including the important initial steps of the various
investigations. Just as obviously, a shooting brings upheaval and urgency of
various kinds to the family members of the subject. Their need for information

53

 and answers is understandable, but interaction with the law enforcement officials
who might have those answers is potentially fraught for a number of reasons. At
best, detectives and other personnel are often too busy for the kind of patient,
thoughtful exchanges that are required; at worst, insensitivity or even
interrogation of the family as witnesses can compound the difficulties they are
experiencing.
Recognizing the potential for this dynamic, some agencies assign an individual to
serve as a “family liaison” in the aftermath of a deadly force incident and beyond.
Free from other responsibilities and with a different orientation (and perhaps even
some relevant training), an individual designated to perform this role is helpful
both to an agency’s investigative personnel and to its ability to deal effectively
and compassionately with aggrieved family members.
RECOMMENDATION 34: The Department should develop
a “family liaison” protocol in which, after a shooting or other
critical incident, a designated individual will focus on
providing family members with information and updates
about medical status and subsequent procedural matters.

Reach Out to Impacted Family Members
In addition to assigning a liaison to impacted family members, as a part of postshooting protocols, the Chief should reach out to the family and offer to meet with
them shortly after the incident. Whenever a person is killed or injured as a result
of the use of officer deadly force, it is a tragic outcome, regardless of the
circumstances. An offer to meet with the family to offer condolences for the loss
or injury of their loved one and explain the investigative and review process is an
important outreach. The Chief’s expression of such sentiment does not equate to
an admission of any liability or a lack of support for his or her personnel. Rather,
it is a recognition of the human toll of any deadly force incident.
RECOMMENDATION 35: The Chief should plan to offer
to meet with family members in the aftermath of an officerinvolved shooting as a way of acknowledging loss and
sending a broader message of empathy and accountability to
the community.

54

 Objectively Disseminate Public Information
After an officer-involved shooting, there is an immediate and understandable
public demand for information about the details of the event. In the face of this,
police and city officials must struggle to find the right balance between speed and
accuracy – a tension that is only complicated by the sensitivity of the subject
matter and the ways in which important investigative details can emerge in
piecemeal fashion. Nonetheless, and given the credibility and public trust issues
that are magnified in this context, all jurisdictions would benefit by following
certain key principles.
Foremost among these is making sure that any information disseminated is
correct. In our experience, we have seen multiple instances in which aspects of
initial reports turn out to be wrong as more or better information is gathered.
Often, these are details about weapons or alleged subject behavior that are
favorable to the officers’ decision to use deadly force and are released in an effort
to defuse criticism or accusation. These mistakes of fact, however innocent, can
compromise public perception of the official response, to the point where even
justified shootings are shadowed by doubt in some circles.
Similarly, the selective distribution of evidence can also be problematic. The
control that law enforcement has over the information relating to a critical
incident means that it has an inherent ability to shape public perception that it
must exercise with care. Even accurate information can lead to a perception of
bias and pre-determination when it is shared selectively or when the jurisdiction’s
approach is inconsistent.25
RECOMMENDATION 36: The Department should review
its information-sharing protocols after officer-involved
shootings to ensure that its approach is giving proper weight
to accuracy, consistency, and objectivity.

Conduct Neighborhood Meetings
Whenever an officer-involved shooting occurs, it is a significant event in the
neighborhood where it has taken place. Police agencies who recognize the
interest in providing information to those neighborhoods will schedule a
community meeting within a few days of the event. To publicize the gathering,
25

We are familiar from different agencies with a dynamic in which “favorable” evidence
is released promptly, while more problematic details are withheld.

55

 police officials prepare and distribute flyers and use the City’s social media
outlets. At the meeting, preliminary information can be conveyed as well as the
information about the investigative and review process, but the primary purpose is
for the attendees to raise any concerns or questions and for the police department
to be responsive to them to the extent possible. If answers are not yet available,
police leadership can commit to providing those answers when they become
available, particularly since state legislation has provided police agencies greater
leeway to discuss officer-involved shooting events.
These events can be difficult. Tensions are often high, and some individuals can
seem determined to be angry regardless of the presentation’s substance or merits.
But the Department’s willingness to conduct this type of outreach and accept
negative reaction sends a powerful, constructive message about its commitment to
the community at large.
RECOMMENDATION 37: The Department should
schedule community meetings within days of an officerinvolved shooting as part of its standard incident response.

Commit to Transparency
Evolving public sentiments have led to changes in the amount of transparency in
law enforcement investigations that is both expected and legally required. To its
credit, VPD has responded with diligence since new laws took effect in 2019: its
website features responsive materials – including body-camera footage – relating
to years’ worth of incidents that are covered by mandated disclosure statutes.
While commending the Department for those efforts, we also encourage it to look
beyond the floor of those requirements and embrace an even greater degree of
openness and candor.
For example, recent state legislation requires video of an officer-involved
shooting to be released within 45 days of an incident, subject to certain
exceptions. Progressive police agencies are using the state law as the outer
requirement of releasing such evidence and have striven to release information
sooner in recognition of intense public interest. Doing so enhances the
jurisdiction’s reputation for transparency.
We also hope that the new requirement to release investigative materials at the
conclusion of a shooting investigation will be a forum for the Department to
reveal the fullness of its administrative responses – including any necessary
corrective actions it identified and implemented. Doing so would provide an

56

 important supplement to the District Attorney’s notifications about criminal
review; these public letters were a step forward when they emerged in the last
several years, but inevitably have a narrow focus, end in a decision not to file
charges, and can be unsatisfying to interested observers in terms of substance as
well as result.
RECOMMENDATION 38: The Department should strive to
exceed the newly established requirements for transparency
with regard to officer-involved shootings, by releasing video
evidence as soon as it is practicable and by offering detailed
explanations to the public about the scope, nature, and
outcomes of its internal reviews.

Keep Litigation Issues Separate from the Official Department Response
In many jurisdictions that have struggled with controversial incidents involving
the police, lawyers advocating for the subjects of those incidents (or for their
families) often assume a high profile, and their criticism can lead to unwelcome
media attention. There is no easy way to handle this dynamic. But one approach
we recognize as less productive is when agencies or jurisdictions yield to the
temptation to blame the lawyers for instigating negative public reaction or unrest.
There are different pitfalls to this tendency. One is that it tends to miss a key
point: if there were fewer questionable incidents, there would presumably be less
for the plaintiff’s bar to be concerned about. More centrally, though, a
preoccupation with legal defensiveness or posturing can impede an agency’s
ability to engage in the productive self-critiques we describe above.
This is not to say that litigation doesn’t matter, or that the publication of one-sided
versions of sensitive events isn’t frustrating. Instead, it is a recognition that the
unique challenges of addressing lawsuits and dealing with the plaintiff’s bar or the
media should be kept separate from the Department and City’s public positions
about the non-adversarial investigative and review processes that require
objective attention.
In the same way, jurisdictions – including Vallejo – should avoid commissioning
and then publicly disseminating expert reports that render opinions about the
propriety of a shooting prior to the completion of both the criminal and
administrative review. In at least one case where the expert found nothing in the
officers’ decision-making to criticize, the full report was placed on the City
website before either the District Attorney or VPD had an opportunity to complete

57

 their own investigation and review.26 By assigning an expert to conduct a review
before the criminal justice and administrative process had been completed and by
then disseminating the findings, it potentially compromised those other processes
and set up a possibility of contrary and competing findings.
RECOMMENDATION 39: The Department and other City
officials should consider new and less contentious ways of
dealing with its critics, particularly in the context of pending
litigation, and should work to ensure that its litigation
posture does not interfere with the rigor and objectivity of its
administrative reviews.

Transparency and Community Engagement
Department Website
As mentioned above, the Department’s website offers a significant amount of new
information related to prior officer-involved shootings and other critical incidents.
This is a response to new state law requirements. Similarly, another state bill that
recently took effect requires police agencies to post their manuals and training
materials on-line. VPD has met this new obligation as well.
That said, the current website configuration makes it difficult for a member of the
general public to locate the information. Unless an individual was familiar with
the relevant statutes or the number of the legislation behind the new transparency
mandates, readily finding on-line information is a difficult chore. The police
website – and the public – would benefit from addressing this through a reorganization. Clear headings and explanatory materials would make the site
easier to navigate, and would reflect a recognition of the spirit as well as the letter
of these new laws.
Indeed, we would also encourage the Department to consider additional ways it
could use its website to increase public engagement and awareness. Potential
examples include offering aggregate data about uses of force and misconduct
allegations, and promoting different agency initiatives that might benefit from
public involvement. By going beyond requirements and affirmatively sharing

It seems unlikely that a report finding a shooting out of policy or critical of the officers’
performance would have been disseminated the same way.
26

58

 information about its operations, VPD could not only make itself more
accountable but also potentially enhance appreciation for its work.
RECOMMENDATION 40: The Department should
enhance the clarity and accessibility of its website in terms
of required information, and should consider ways to further
utilize the site as a vehicle for informing and engaging the
public.

Community Engagement in Promotional Process
We discussed above how Vallejo’s public was very involved in providing
feedback to City leadership during the recent Chief selection process. The
community should be similarly invited to engage in promotional decisions at all
ranks. Community members outside VPD’s culture provide insight and a fresh
perspective on candidates that the Department already knows. Moreover, during
the interviews, community representatives will likely focus on issues such as the
candidate’s ability to productively engage with the public. VPD would be wellserved to bring community members into this discussion as these important
decisions are being made to select the supervisors and leaders of its organization.
RECOMMENDATION 41: VPD should engage community
members at the interview stage of its promotional process.

Surveys and other Feedback
The idea of “customer outreach” is of course widespread in private industry;
companies value it so much that they persist in asking for survey responses and
even offer incentives for people to do so. Public entities have less of a tradition in
this regard, but it is nonetheless an avenue worth exploring.
In part because of the recent controversy surrounding uses of deadly force, the
City has stepped up its public outreach town hall meetings and providing a way
for its community to learn more and engage about police affairs through the City
website. In addition to what has already been done, there are a variety of new
approaches to this that agencies around the country are trying, and that might
prove useful in Vallejo. For example, there are “text messaging-based”
approaches that facilitate quick feedback from people who have just encountered
the police in one context or another. A related initiative could take advantage of
technology to automatically generate a short survey for individuals whose contact

59

 information is in a police report – as reporting parties, witnesses, victims, and
even arrestees.
In addition to endeavoring to seek feedback from a broader array of individuals in
the Vallejo community, VPD should also target input from its criminal justice and
social services partners. VPD officers regularly interact with prosecutors, jail
supervisors, judges, public defenders, juvenile justice administrators, probation
officers, and social workers. Because of those interactions, individuals in these
other agencies have significant insight into the performance of individual officers
and VPD as an organization. We urge VPD to actively and regularly seek such
feedback from these professionals.
RECOMMENDATION 42: VPD should devise additional
ways to solicit and encourage feedback from all of its
communities regarding the performance of the Department.
RECOMMENDATION 43: VPD should devise a feedback
loop for its criminal justice partners (including the District
Attorney, Sheriff, Judges, Public Defenders, Juvenile Justice
Administrators, Probation Officers, and Social Workers)
regarding the performance of its officers and the Department
as a whole.

Independent Oversight
One pillar of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing addressed
the importance of oversight and community collaboration and recommended that
law enforcement agencies establish civilian oversight mechanisms: “Some form
of civilian oversight of law enforcement is important in order to strengthen trust
with the community. Every community should define the appropriate form and
structure of civilian oversight to meet the needs of that community.”
(Recommendation 2.8)
This call for formal oversight reflects a growing sentiment in the United States,
where the outcomes of individual high-profile incidents in recent years have
heightened a sense of division between police and segments of the public.
Expanding public involvement – and increasing the extent to which police
officers are accountable to entities outside their own agency – is an important way
of bridging gaps of distrust, alienation, and misunderstanding.

60

 Jurisdictions throughout the country have addressed their distinctive needs by
creating models of oversight that range in name, size, budget, scope of authority,
and specific roles. But these different forms of oversight share the same basic
goal – finding ways to give the public a greater voice in how the police operate
within their communities.
One mechanism that we have seen used successfully is the creation of a Chief’s
Advisory Board that meets regularly and provides informal advice to Department
leadership. Comprised of a diverse cross-section of the community – including
those who historically have been critical of law enforcement as well as traditional
supporters – the board can be an important source of information and an effective
sounding board on subjects such as public safety strategies, critical policy
development, and hiring and promotions.
Beyond this type of community-based board, many jurisdictions also have a layer
of outside scrutiny and input in various forms of professional oversight. With
knowledge of progressive police practices and experience with conducting
qualitative audits of sensitive police responsibilities, an independent police
monitor or auditor can advise on policy changes, recommend training initiatives,
identify trends or issues of concern, work with the agency to create solutions, and
report to the public in a substantive way. Effective monitors build collaborative
relationships with both the police department and various communities – and
serve as a bridge between the two – to enhance transparency, increase
accountability, and improve public awareness and involvement.
As President Obama’s Task Force recognized, every community should evaluate
its own needs to define to form of oversight that will work best in the context of
its particular challenges and concerns. We cannot say which model best suits
Vallejo, but given the level of tension between the police and community –
indeed, the reason we were engaged to prepare this report – we can say with
confidence that the City and the Department will benefit from adopting some
form of independent outside review. VPD should welcome this development. A
police agency oriented toward giving a greater voice to its community on how
best to perform its public safety responsibilities will increase the public’s trust in
its performance and operations.
RECOMMENDATION 44: VPD should develop a way to
obtain feedback and input from its community when
contemplating major policy changes or public safety
strategies.

61

 RECOMMENDATION 45: VPD should work with City
leadership to create a model of independent oversight
specifically tailored to meet the needs of Vallejo.

62

 Conclusion
As the Covid-19 crisis continues with no definitive end in sight, any effort at
projecting into the near future – in any arena – becomes that much more
complicated. The City of Vallejo, its residents, and its Police Department are
grappling like everyone else with health concerns, new paradigms for interaction,
and daunting financial setbacks. We submit this report in the midst of a very
unusual time, and we acknowledge that the circumstances that shaped our various
recommendations are shifting with unusual levels of speed and uncertainty. Some
key components of our analysis – including the City’s commitment of significant
resources to VPD staffing and infrastructure – are potentially affected by that
uncertainty.
In another way, though, the disruption created by the pandemic creates
opportunities for positive innovation amidst the hardships. Individual people,
organizations, institutions, and whole communities are being called upon to adapt
– to evaluate their priorities and find new ways of achieving them. There is
nothing welcome about the need to do this, or the suffering and loss that are the
persistent backdrop for this time period. Nonetheless, and however much
timelines need to be re-imagined or priorities reconsidered, the current challenges
need not completely derail whatever constructive initiatives remain viable.
As we have tried to convey throughout this report, our belief is that VPD now has
the leadership, the potential, the support, and even the desire to change
longstanding dynamics for the better. Many of these are dependent on money for
hiring and other neglected supports; we hope that the concrete plans to
accomplish this can still be realized in spite of the pandemic’s tremendous strain
on City coffers. Others, though, are matters of culture and enforcement
philosophy that relate to resource allocation without depending on it completely.
And some are matters of internal policy that could happen as quickly as VPD has
the institutional will to do so.
In speaking with current Department leadership and reviewing their policies and
protocols, we saw a real potential for implementing meaningful reform, and for
changing the fundamental relationship with the Vallejo community into
something more trusting and collaborative in both directions. A very thoughtful
member of the command staff spoke to us about the important distinction between
police actions that are technically lawful and/or “in policy,” and those that build

63

 equity in the community. The concepts are not mutually exclusive, of course, but
they are also not inherently in sync. We offer the above recommendations in a
spirit of helping to close gaps to the extent possible. We extend our thanks for the
full cooperation we received. And we send good wishes to VPD and the Vallejo
community as both move forward in this difficult time.

64

 Recommendations

1

The Department should persevere with the City in its efforts to
develop the proposed new headquarters facility, and look for
ways to enhance community access and engagement.

2

In considering requests for staffing, the City should pay particular
attention to requests designed to add civilians to assist with
making police services more accessible such as the lobby and
more timely calls for service.

3

The City should ensure that VPD has sufficient resources to
properly maintain and audit its retained stores of evidence and
property.

4

The Department should explore ways to expose officers to a
range of possible work experiences by changing to a rotational
system for designated special assignments.

5

The Department should commit to strengthening the range and
responsiveness of its workforce by continuing to focus on racial,
gender, and ethnic diversity in its recruiting efforts.

6

The Department should find ways to provide promotional
opportunities and mentoring for female officers and officers of
color.

7

As additional resources become available, VPD should develop
and deploy crime prevention strategies involving problem solving
and community engagement.

8

As additional resources become available, VPD should consider
assigning officers to neighborhoods and beats and empower them
to devise crime prevention strategies to keep their assigned
neighborhoods safe.

65

 9

The Department should use the adoption of a new, stricter
activation requirement as the foundation for a new approach to its
body-worn camera technology.

10 The Department should implement a graduated program of
accountability to ensure that officers are complying with the
expectations of the new policy.

11 The Department’s management should consider body-worn
camera recordings as, among other things, a forum for identifying
performance and training issues and addressing them
constructively and progressively – and not through automatic
formal discipline for minor issues.

12 The Department should ensure that officers involved in a
shooting are interviewed – either criminally or administratively –
prior to the end of the shift in which the shooting occurred.

13 The Department should obtain a pure statement in an interview
setting from officers involved in a shooting prior to their initial
viewing of any recorded evidence from the incident and work to
change any County-wide protocols that are in conflict with best
practices.

14 The Department should change its protocol for reviewing critical
incidents by empowering Professional Standards Division,
working in conjunction with the Critical Incident Review Board,
to conduct a holistic review and evaluation of all critical incidents
to encompass the performance of involved personnel (including
non-force users) as well as issues of policy, training, tactics,
supervision, equipment, and/or incident aftermath.

15 The Department should guide the CIRB’s analysis by requiring
specific findings in each of the following categories: pre-event
planning and decision-making, tactics, and post-event response
(including timely transition to rescue mode).

16 The Department should provide the CIRB with greater flexibility
to tailor its outcome recommendations across a range of possible
categories, rather than limiting it to a blanket finding about the
incident as a whole.

66

 17 The Department should consider ways to conduct its critical
incident review in time-appropriate phases, beginning with an
initial debrief and issue-spotting and continuing to a more
thorough examination of administrative issues including officer
performance.

18 The Department should set specific goals in writing for the timely
completion of different phases of the critical incident review
process, to make sure that the appropriate responses and
remediations are occurring in as meaningful and productive a
way as possible.

19 The Department should develop a separate administrative
investigative package, including separate administrative
interviews of involved personnel , to help the CIRB to identify
and resolve issues related not only to the use of force but also
collateral matters that merit formal attention.

20 The CIRB should play a direct role in the identification and
resolution of individual policy violations or other performance
issues associated with a critical incident.

21 VPD and the City should clarify the role of legal counsel in the
CIRB process, so that input on questions of law and liability does
not come at the expense of rigorous analysis and necessary
remedial measures.

22 The Department should develop a protocol for standardizing a
specific and documented supervisorial evaluation of every use of
force.

23 The Department should ensure that the assistance of the Force
Options team with officer report-writing does not become a tool
for retroactive justification of questionable force deployments or
a basis for truncating appropriate scrutiny.

24 The Department’s analysis of each use of force should include
affirmative managerial determinations as to whether the force
was in policy, and whether training, tactical, or other
considerations were identified.

67

 25 Each use of force should be reviewed and evaluated to determine
whether de-escalation techniques were considered or
implemented prior to the application of force, and/or why they
were not.

26 The Department should incorporate its current policies for
supervisory review, including detailed evidence gathering by
supervisors where applicable, into this process.

27 The Department should create formal mechanisms for
documenting and tracking any action items that emerge from this
process, in order to ensure appropriate follow-through.

28 The Department should build on its intermittently successful
efforts to make complaint notification letters as detailed and
useful to recipients as possible.

29 The Department should compile and periodically publicly
produce aggregate data about the number of complaints received,
the number of internal investigations conducted, and the number
and type of uses of force so as to offer greater insight into the
nature and effectiveness of its accountability measures.

30 The Department should develop written internal deadlines to
complete an investigation and review process and require
supervisory approval for deviation from those deadlines.

31 The Department should evaluate its individual misconduct
investigations to ensure that all relevant issues are identified and
pursued to a reasonable extent, including a written standard
requiring formal interviews with witness officers.

32 The Department should evaluate its levels of discipline for
sustained policy violations to ensure that the proper amount of
remediation is occurring.

33 The Department should continue to use the civil claims process
as a vehicle for assessment of its own performance, and should
refrain from allowing liability concerns impede the rigor and
thoroughness of this process.

68

 34 The Department should develop a “family liaison” protocol in
which, after a shooting or other critical incident, a designated
individual will focus on providing family members with
information and updates about medical status and subsequent
procedural matters.

35 The Chief should plan to offer to meet with family members in
the aftermath of an officer-involved shooting as a way of
acknowledging loss and sending a broader message of empathy
and accountability to the community.

36 The Department should review its information-sharing protocols
after officer-involved shootings to ensure that its approach is
giving proper weight to accuracy, consistency, and objectivity.

37 The Department should schedule community meetings within
days of an officer-involved shooting as part of its standard
incident response.

38 The Department should strive to exceed the newly established
requirements for transparency with regard to officer-involved
shootings, by releasing video evidence as soon as it is practicable
and by offering detailed explanations to the public about the
scope, nature, and outcomes of its internal reviews.

39 The Department and other City officials should consider new and
less contentious ways of dealing with its critics, particularly in
the context of pending litigation, and should work to ensure that
its litigation posture does not interfere with the rigor and
objectivity of its administrative reviews.

40 The Department should enhance the clarity and accessibility of
its website in terms of required information, and should consider
ways to further utilize the site as a vehicle for informing and
engaging the public.

41 VPD should engage community members at the interview stage
of its promotional process.

69

 42 VPD should devise additional ways to solicit and encourage
feedback from all of its communities regarding the performance
of the Department.

43 VPD should devise a feedback loop for its criminal justice
partners (including the District Attorney, Sheriff, Judges, Public
Defenders, Juvenile Justice Administrators, Probation Officers,
and Social Workers) regarding the performance of its officers and
the Department as a whole.

44 VPD should develop a way to obtain feedback and input from its
community when contemplating major policy changes or public
safety strategies.

45 VPD should work with City leadership to create a model of
independent oversight specifically tailored to meet the needs of
Vallejo.

70