Appeals court rules city must release Vallejo PD badge-bending investigation

VALLEJO – A California appeals court handed a victory to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California on Friday, finding that the city must release an investigator’s report into officers bending the tips of their badges to mark shootings at the Vallejo Police Department. 

A panel of the California First Appellate District ruled that the investigation was not a confidential personnel record but was subject to public disclosure under SB 1421, a 2019 state law which required the release of records related to police shootings. 

Solano County Superior Court Judge Stephen Gizzi had previously ruled that only 19 pages of the 167-page report could be released. But the appeals court found that the records the ACLU sought, which includes the report and any supplemental materials, is “generally subject to public disclosure.”

The ruling revealed some of what was contained inside former Sonoma County sheriff Robert Giordano’s investigative report into badge-bending, which examined 17 years of police shootings in Vallejo. The department’s independent investigation into the practice took a year and cost more than $100,000.

The court said Giordano found the practice troubling but more of a “celebration” of officers surviving shooting incidents. But he said that it presented a problem for the department, writing that “modifying the badge to mark an officer’s engagement and survival in a critical shooting incident … can be misinterpreted or send the wrong message about Vallejo PD officers’ approach to use of force and the sanctity of human life, as it has here.”

Giordano also found that six of the 14 officers involved in the shootings had engaged in “conduct unbecoming an officer” or other violations of department policy. The officers were not disciplined as the city started its investigation more than a year after learning about the practice, which by law prevented any discipline of the officers, according to the appeals court.

Giordano and several involved officers testified about the practice over two days in 2022. A Solano County judge who reviewed the report was harshly critical of Giordano’s investigation and said it had “no value.” Still, the city has aggressively fought to keep it secret.

The Vallejo Police Department and the city attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

“The Court of Appeal rightly determined that the public’s right to know all about officer-involved shootings necessarily entails disclosure of records related to the Vallejo Police Department’s investigation into its badge-bending scandal,” deputy director of the ACLU’s criminal justice and immigration project Avram Frey said Monday.  “We look forward to the disclosure of a report that is as transparent as possible so the community can finally begin to heal from this shameful and traumatic history.” 

The ACLU’s case began when it requested the investigation and additional records pertaining to badge bending from the police department. Former police Capt. John Whitney publicly revealed the practice after he tried to address it with department superiors, who failed to act. The city ordered the investigation after Whitney disclosed the practice in media reports and hired Giordano to conduct it.  

When Vallejo PD did not release Giordano’s investigative report, claiming it was a confidential personnel record, the ACLU filed a petition in Solano County Superior Court. Gizzi ordered the release of a portion, with redactions to protect the identities of officers, witnesses, and their families. Both the city and the ACLU sought review by the appeals court.

The ACLU argued that the investigative report should be public since it was “investigating the conduct of officers in shootings,” while the city argued that the investigation was not case-or officer-specific and looked generally at conduct occurring after a shooting.

Justice Kathleen Banke wrote in Friday's opinion that Vallejo treated the investigation into badge bending as an internal affairs investigation, as it notified officers they were being investigated for possible violations of several department policies and the independent investigator made findings as to whether these officers violated those policies. 

“Given the Legislature’s repeated emphasis on the public’s ‘right to know all about officer-involved shootings and other serious uses of force,’ the Legislature could not have intended that an independent investigation into a ‘very troubling and disturbing’ practice following officer shootings would remain undisclosed because of delay in bringing the practice to light,” Banke wrote.

“In this regard, the substance of the investigator’s ultimate findings matters not. To the contrary, the public’s “right to know” is served as much by an investigation or report that determines an officer complied with the law and all department use of force policies, as it is by an investigation or report that determines the opposite,” Banke wrote.

The appeals court also found that the redaction of officer names could not be sustained on the grounds that Gizzi relied on. The justices remanded the case back to Gizzi due to the high volume of potentially disclosable materials sought, providing a long background of case literature for the judge to consider.