Mario Romero

  13 posts

Mario Romero was shot and killed by Vallejo police Officers Sean Kenney and Dustin Joseph in 2012.

  Aug 25, 2023

ACLU hosts community meeting to offer support for Vallejo police reform

The discussion emphasized the pain of police violence in search for effective reform and safety....

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  Apr 10, 2023

Federal case law protects Vallejo police’s pattern of violence, legal scholar argues

Joanna Schwartz, a professor of law at UCLA, wrote in her new book Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable that a federal judge “had firsthand knowledge of a pattern of substantial claims of constitutional violations by Vallejo police.”...

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  Dec 14, 2022

Vallejo mayor requests investigation into city’s destruction of police records

In an interview with the Sun on Wednesday, McConnell said the amount of destruction “is not yet fully and truthfully known.”...

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  Dec 01, 2022

Vallejo says it ‘inadvertently’ destroyed records in five police shooting investigations

The records were destroyed in early 2021 before their destruction was allowed under city policy....

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  Jul 13, 2022

Records show Vallejo police paid for repaired or replacement badges for officers in shootings

Officers may have obtained refurbished or replacement badges to obscure a tradition of bending the tips of their badges to mark on-duty shootings....

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  Mar 31, 2022

How badge bending became a ritual among Vallejo police

For the last two decades, some members of the Vallejo Police Department have bent the tips of badges belonging to officers after they were involved in an on-duty shooting....

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  Jan 04, 2022

Ten years since Vallejo police’s deadliest year, $12.7 million has been paid to settle civil rights lawsuits

The city of Vallejo has paid $12.7 million in settlements in 23 civil rights lawsuits for incidents since Jan. 1, 2012....

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  Sep 21, 2021

Former Vallejo officer accused of badge-bending faces excessive force lawsuit at new agency

The lawsuit alleges that two other Fairfield officers pushed a man to the ground during a traffic stop in January 2019 and that Joseph slammed his wife down to prevent her from filming it....

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  Mar 24, 2021

Vallejo is experiencing an epidemic of police shootings — and many of the victims have been unarmed

The Appeal examined 17 fatal shootings by the Vallejo police over the last decade and found at least six cases where the person shot may have been unarmed....

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  Feb 08, 2021

Relatives of Willie McCoy, other impacted families to rally for police reform in Sacramento on Tuesday

VALLEJO– The families of relatives killed by law enforcement will rally at the...

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  Jul 27, 2020

For Vallejo officers who use force, a pattern of promotions and awards

Of 45 officers whose actions over the last decade have led to monetary payouts in civil rights lawsuits, all but 15 have been promoted or received an award since the incident,...

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  Jun 09, 2019

Expensive and Dangerous: Vallejo police may pay more per officer in civil rights cases than any other agency

From 2013-2018, Vallejo paid out $6,184,587 in civil rights cases. That amounts to $9,370 per officer per year, thousands of dollars more than other agencies nationwide....

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