Former Vallejo police chief files claim against city alleging city attorney's office obstructed reform

VALLEJO – Former Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams filed a claim against the city of Vallejo in January alleging that the City Attorney’s Office illegally threatened him to block him from testifying about the role of city officials in obstructing his efforts to reform the police department. 

The claim further alleges that the City Attorney’s Office and then-City Manager Mike Malone prevented Williams from firing and disciplining officers for serious misconduct and refused to investigate a series of written threats against Williams that ultimately forced him to resign in 2022.  

Williams, the city’s first and only Black police chief, was hired in 2019 with a mission to reform the department after a series of high-profile incidents involving Vallejo police, including the fatal shootings of Willie McCoy in 2019, Ronell Foster in 2018, and Angel Ramos in 2017. 

But his reform efforts were met with opposition from the Vallejo Police Officers Association, who took a vote of no confidence in his leadership, claiming that he failed to recruit and retain officers.

Williams had hired two experienced recruiters to reshape the department’s hiring policies. One of those recruiters, Ron Tabron, later testified that police union members created roadblocks that prevented them from efficiently recruiting applicants. 

Williams also testified that he received between a half-dozen and a dozen threats from anonymous email accounts beginning in 2021, around the time he issued a notice of intent to fire police Detective Jarrett Tonn for the fatal shooting of Sean Monterrosa in 2020.

In 2023, an arbitrator overturned Tonn’s termination and ordered him reinstated. Earlier this year, the city of Vallejo settled a civil rights lawsuit brought by Monterosa’s family for $8.5 million. 

Williams described the threats he received in a deposition in another civil rights lawsuit brought by McCoy’s niece, Deyana Jenkins, who was pulled over three months after McCoy was killed by two of the officers who killed him. They held her at gunpoint, dragged her out of the car, threw her on the ground and Tased her, according to the lawsuit. She was never charged with a crime.

Former Vallejo Police Capt. John Whitney, who exposed the practice of officers bending the tips of badges to mark shootings, has testified that Jenkins’ arrest was one of numerous issues with the department he raised with superiors before he was fired.

Williams testified that the threats escalated in the weeks and months before he resigned. One of the most alarming incidents was a Halloween card that emitted a loud screeching sound when his secretary opened it. Williams testified it was so loud that he thought there may be a domestic violence incident happening outside the station.

Williams left the department in late 2022. He signed a severance agreement that required him to release any claims against the city and prohibited him from speaking publicly about his employment with the city for two years. 

However, his current claim arises from incidents that have occurred since his separation from the city. 

According to the claim, Williams has incurred thousands of dollars in legal expenses to hire his own independent counsel in lawsuits related to his former duties as police chief. The claim alleges that city attorneys intentionally neglected their duty to defend Williams as a means to dissuade him from testifying about the city’s illegal actions. 

When civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, who has been litigating cases against the Vallejo Police Department for years, deposed Williams as part of Jenkins’ lawsuit, she asked if he had been subject to any threats or harassment in relation to the deposition, which she said is a standard question to ensure that a witness has not been influenced.

Williams replied affirmatively and identified Assistant City Attorney Katelyn Knight, who was attending the deposition on a video call, as someone who had threatened or harassed him prior to the deposition. 

According to Nold, Knight did not regularly attend depositions in the Jenkins case. 

When Nold asked Williams to explain in detail what Knight had said or done to threaten or harass him, Knight objected, citing attorney-client privilege. 

Nold argued that incidents of witness intimidation are exempt from attorney-client privilege and that Williams also has the option to waive that protection.

“You believe that you have attorney-client protection for trying to intimidate a witness who was a former employee of the city and a whistle-blower?” Nold said to Knight.

Knight replied, “If the intimidation consists of giving legal advice about a matter, however it is perceived, yes, that is squarely covered by attorney-client privilege.” 

Knight added that the city is the client rather than Williams and that the city would not waive its right to privileged communication with counsel.

Nold called for a judge to rule on the dispute but continued the deposition.

The issue came up again when Nold asked Williams about retaliatory actions that caused him to resign. 

Williams said that the city attorney had threatened him about 11 months before he resigned. Nold asked if that threat came from a conversation with Knight and he said, “no.” 

When Nold asked who made the threat, Knight objected again on the basis of attorney-client privilege.

Following the deposition, U.S.Magistrate Judge Sean Riordan accepted Nold’s request to rule on whether the interactions she questioned Williams about involved witness intimidation.

Riordan privately reviewed declarations from Knight and Williams and issued a ruling on Feb. 10, stating that the communications between Knight or other city employees did not constitute intimidation or obstruction and that the exception to attorney-client privilege did not apply.

In an interview, Nold said that, although she never saw the declarations, her concern is that the court’s questions did not go back far enough to examine the contextual meaning from threatening behavior that may have been happening over time.

The city of Vallejo issued a press release the day after the ruling lauding, “the court’s careful review of [the] matter.” 

The Vallejo Sun obtained Williams’ claim against the city through a public records request. The city redacted portions of the claim that provided specific details about the city’s actions, also citing attorney-client privilege. 

When asked why it was necessary to redact the claim and block Williams from testifying if there was no impropriety involved, Knight provided a statement that referenced the judge's ruling and reiterated that there was no legally inappropriate conduct by counsel for the city. 

The City Attorney’s Office has faced other recent allegations of misconduct. Whitney testified in the Jenkins case that in 2018 or 2019, the department started adding then-Assistant City Attorney Kelly Trujillo to emails, group text messages and critical incident reviews so that the department could argue that they were attorney-client privileged and exempt from the California Public Records Act. Trujillo is now a Solano County Superior Court judge.,

Whitney also testified that the department kept a separate filing cabinet of complaints against officers that were resolved without a formal investigation and illegally withheld from criminal defendants. An attorney for the city of Vallejo confirmed to a judge that a dual filing system had existed but claimed that the practice had since been corrected.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called for an investigation into alleged misconduct by the city attorney’s office. The city hired an outside firm to evaluate the claims in December, but has provided no further updates.

The claim filed by Williams’ attorney Daniel Russo is a required preliminary step before filing a lawsuit. Russo did not respond to a request for comment.