Former Vallejo police captain who exposed badge bending ritual settles lawsuit for $900K

VALLEJO – A former Vallejo police captain who upended the department after he revealed that officers had bent the tips of their star-shaped badges to mark on-duty shootings settled his lawsuit against the city this week for $900,000.

Former Vallejo police Capt. John Whitney said in a statement provided to the Vallejo Sun that he hopes the settlement “is the beginning of some of the major changes that I have always advocated for in Vallejo.”

“Reporting wrongdoing in law enforcement should be encouraged, not vilified,” Whitney said. “Yet for years now, I have faced retaliation from people who did not want to be held accountable for badge bending. Vallejo should have immediately addressed officer misconduct and badge-bending. Instead they terminated me for doing the right thing.”

Whitney alleged that he was fired after bringing the practice to the attention of department superiors and top city officials. The city said that Whitney was fired for erasing data on his city-owned phone prior to turning it in during a leak investigation. Whitney sued the city in 2020, months after publicly revealing the badge bending practice. The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial in October.

According to his lawsuit, Whitney had been a law enforcement officer since 1996 and joined the Vallejo Police Department in 2000, where he rose through the ranks until he was promoted to captain in 2015.

Whitney testified in a deposition in his lawsuit last year that he first brought badge bending to the attention of department superiors in 2014 or 2015, when he noticed bends on an officer’s badge who was being promoted. He testified that he pointed them out to then-police Chief Andrew Bidou and then-Capt. Lee Horton. Bidou told Horton to “take care of this,” but the practice continued for years, according to Whitney.

Whitney testified that he did not hear about badge bending again until after the shooting of Willie McCoy in February 2019.

Shortly after that shooting, Officer Ryan McMahon was placed on leave for an alteration to his gun. When he turned in his badge, then-Sgt. Drew Ramsay noticed it had two bent tips and brought it to Bidou’s office while Whitney was present and said, “Hey, he bent his badge for the two shootings he was in,” according to Whitney. Prior to the McCoy shooting, McMahon shot and killed Ronell Foster in 2018.

Ramsay said that Officer Zachary Jacobsen, who shot and killed Angel Ramos in 2017, had bent McMahon's badge, Whitney testified.

During an executive staff meeting in spring of 2019, Bidou told Whitney to instruct all the department supervisors to have anyone under their command who had bent badges to turn them in. Within two hours, about ten officers turned in their badges, Whitney said.

Whitney testified that Bidou had intended to have the badges repaired, but he was concerned that the bill would raise questions about why so many officers needed their badges repaired. Instead, he ordered them returned to the officers. Whitney testified that he refused to give them back to the officers because they’d be getting rid of the evidence of the badge bending practice.

After that, Whitney testified that he brought the matter up with top city officials, including then-City Manager Greg Nyhoff, then-City Attorney Claudia Quintana, and then-Mayor Bob Sampayan.

Whitney testified that he had raised numerous other issues with the department’s culture that were not addressed by department leadership – including alleging that former Vallejo Police Officers Association President Mat Mustard had lowered the department’s promotion standards so that he could make sergeant and that current VPOA President Lt. Michael Nichelini had falsified time cards.

He also questioned officers’ use of force, particularly when McCoy’s niece, Deyana Jenkins, was pulled over and Tased months after her nephew was killed. Whitney testified that from his perspective she was “not physically resisting arrest or resisting their commands.”

After then-San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis Taylor submitted public records requests that indicated he had received confidential department information, including information about the alterations to McMahon’s gun, the department investigated Whitney for leaking the information. When investigators arrived to collect Whitney’s department-issued cellphone, he performed a factory reset on the phone, erasing its contents, according to the deposition testimony.

Whitney testified that he had been using his cellphone for both his police duties and as a personal device, and testified that Bidou had told him to delete his text messages and emails because they were stored on a city server. He was not found to be the source of the leak but he was fired for deleting the contents of his phone, according to his lawsuit.

After Whitney went public with the allegations of badge bending, the city hired former Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano to conduct an investigation. But the city has refused to release its findings, claiming it is a confidential personnel record. A judge who reviewed the report said it had “no value.”

Just after the Vallejo City Council approved the settlement with Whitney during a closed session meeting on Monday, dozens of police reform advocates spoke at the meeting to demand the release of Giordano’s report. But the council was more concerned with a deepening staffing shortage in the department, and the mayor even suggested that the department roll back required reform efforts to bolster a depleted patrol squad.

Some point to Vallejo’s perception as an unaccountable and corrupt police department as a reason why the department has been unable to recruit and train officers.

Whitney’s attorney, Jayme Walker, called Whitney a “hero” in a statement.

“Captain John Whitney was exactly the kind of police officer Vallejo needed to help them initiate police reform and accountability,” Walker said. “It takes a lot of courage as a police officer to stand against your own agency and blow the whistle.”