Three years after Vallejo police killed Sean Monterrosa, his family still awaits updates

VALLEJO – After a Vallejo police detective killed their brother in the early morning hours of June 2, 2020, Michelle and Ashley Monterrosa swore they would be the last family to lose a loved one to Vallejo police violence.

Three years later, that remains true as Vallejo police maintain their longest stretch of not having shot or killed anyone after killing 19 people since 2010.

“Not to jinx it or anything, but it goes to show the public pressure — not just our family, but all the families and the community — that we have collective power, that we have city officials who are listening to us,” Michelle Monterrosa, Sean’s older sister, said in an interview this week. “We are going to remain saying that we want to be the last family, and we will be the last family.”

Sean Monterrosa was a 22-year-old construction worker from San Francisco, the second oldest sibling to Argentinian immigrants. He was killed during protests and looting in Vallejo and other cities across the country in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis days earlier. Sean’s last text message to his sisters asked them to sign a petition seeking justice for Floyd.

Seconds after an unmarked pickup truck carrying three members of Vallejo’s SWAT team pulled into the Walgreens on Redwood Street where there had been a break-in, Det. Jarrett Tonn shot five times from the backseat of the truck, striking Monterrosa once in the back of the head. It was his fourth on-duty shooting as a Vallejo police officer.

Then-Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams described Monterrosa as being in a kneeling position with his hand above his waist when he was killed. The Vallejo police union issued a statement saying Monterrosa took a “tactical” position.

But no video shows Monterrosa in the moments before he died. Tonn’s body camera is obscured by the truck’s windshield. A drone flown by a nearby Medic Ambulance supervisor allegedly captured the shooting, but not even Secret Service agents could pull footage from the device. The footage and other evidence in the case was destroyed.

Like other families impacted by police violence, the Monterrosas continue to wait for justice in the form of prosecutors filing criminal charges against the officer who killed their loved one.

But they’ve done much more than just wait. Their activism for their brother has included publishing op-eds and petitions with the ACLU and getting arrested while protesting outside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s home.

Their latest effort is an art show that runs through June 12 at Medicine for Nightmares bookstore in San Francisco’s Mission District. Sean was a part of San Francisco’s art and graffiti scene, so the art show honoring him is an extension of one of his passions.

“For us, it's also showcasing that we can humanize our families,” Michelle Monterrosa said. “We should be humanizing our families and continue to push forward their legacies.”

“And not let what happened on June 2 to define who the person was,” Ashley Monterrosa, Sean’s younger sister, added.

DOJ investigation lingers on

On May 13, 2021, California Attorney General Rob Bonta agreed to take up the investigation into Monterrosa’s killing, looking specifically at whether Tonn should face criminal charges for the shooting.

“It’s past time Sean Monterrosa’s family, the community, and the people of Vallejo get some answers,” Bonta said in announcing his office would take the case. “They deserve to know where the case stands. Instead, they’ve been met with silence. It’s time for that to change; it’s time for action.”

Bonta specifically called out the Solano County District Attorney’s Office for attempting to send the investigation to the DOJ without notice or invitation. Solano County DA Krishna Abrams recused her office from the Monterrosa investigation and the 2019 police shooting of Willie McCoy, citing the public’s distrust in her ability. Abrams was re-elected to office last year.

Before he was appointed attorney general, Bonta, as a state representative, co-authored AB 1506, which Newsom signed into law in 2020 and directed the California DOJ to investigate all police shootings of “anyone who is not in possession of a deadly weapon.”

But as CalMatters reported this month, the law states those investigations should be done within a year, but many have dragged on long beyond that.

The DOJ only got half of the $26 million it requested from the legislature to fund the new investigations. Xavier Becerra, Bonta’s predecessor as attorney general, told the bill’s chief author that insufficient funding would give the DOJ “limited capacity to implement this bill, short of redirecting resources from other essential, mandated work, which could compromise those operations,” CalMatters reported.

While family members note the slow pace and lack of information disclosed during the AB 1506 investigations, the department says there are limitations on what can be released and when.

“Given the dynamic nature of these sensitive incidents, the California Department of Justice is limited in the information it can provide with regard to such ongoing investigations,” the DOJ website’s AB 1506 page says. “However, we will make every effort to provide updates as soon as feasible and strive to be as transparent as possible throughout the process about what information is currently available for disclosure.”

The Monterrosa sisters said they haven’t received updates from the DOJ regarding their brother’s case.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Ashley Monterrosa said. “I know the history of Vallejo and the badge bending and everything that happened in our brother's case is a lot, but we've seen AGs in other states with just as bad situations where they have concluded and brought forward charges to officers.”

They hope that the lack of updates just means that the DOJ isn’t showing their cards as sweeping actions against the Vallejo Police Department could be in the works.

“Even though it's been three long years, and there's so many moments where you can be easily discouraged, we still remain hopeful,” Michelle Monterrosa said. “Our family prays every day about this, that there's something way more bigger with Sean's death to come.”

The most substantive recent update the DOJ gave regarding its investigation into Vallejo police came on May 10, when Bonta said during a press conference announcing an investigation into racist text messages by police officers in nearby Antioch that his office’s “interest and focus on Vallejo, its practices and policies has not changed.”

Since three days after Monterrosa was killed, Vallejo police have been in a collaborative reform agreement with the DOJ to implement 45 recommendations. But progress has been slow and Bonta lamented that Williams resigned abruptly as chief late last year. “If there’s an opportunity for ongoing collaborative reform work, we invite that,” Bonta said. “If there’s an opportunity for another type of approach, including a patterns and practice investigation, that’s on the table as well.”

In response to the Sun, the DOJ’s press office said it cannot comment on active investigations.

Tonn fired, reinstated. Chief resigns.

An outside investigation concluded in June 2021 that the officers involved in killing Monterrosa — Tonn, Bretton Wagoner, Wesley Pittman and Capt. Lee Horton, their supervisor that night — together violated multiple department policies, from failing to attempt to de-escalate the situation to Tonn’s use of deadly force. Based on those findings, Williams moved to fire Tonn in December 2021. Horton retired shortly before the investigation was made public.

But, during a “Skelly” hearing — a review process afforded to all public employees facing discipline — Tonn’s firing was found to be “excessive” as Williams waited too long after Tonn killed Monterrosa to fire him and did not bring up the incident at Tonn’s performance evaluation.

Despite those findings, Vallejo police announced in October it would continue to pursue terminating Tonn.

The Vallejo Police Officers Association published a statement shortly after, saying it was “disappointed” with the decision, saying they were “confident this egregious political move will be overturned in arbitration.” The union lists Tonn as a “current” employee of the Vallejo Police Department.

Williams — who was often at odds with the VPOA, including the union casting a vote of no confidence in the chief’s leadership last July — stepped down as chief after three years in December.

He has since been praised by some victims of police violence for his attempts to reform the department.

Michelle Monterrosa said her family met with Williams two years after her brother’s killing to humanize each other and work together to reform the department.  “It took a lot,” she said.

“He got run out of the city by the VPOA, and he was bold enough to try to fight against them,” she said. “We hope that someone else can come in and fill in that void and that gap and really stand up against the VPOA and the corruption of the city that's happened for far too long.”

The VPOA also ignored subpoenas for records from attorneys representing Monterrosa’s family in their federal civil rights case for years.

Overseeing the Vallejo Police Department

Early last month, the Solano County chapter of the ACLU launched a petition demanding several reforms of the Vallejo Police Department, including finally implementing the 45 recommended changes required by the DOJ.

The petition also expressed concern with the lack of transparency from an investigation into the Vallejo police practice where officers bent the tips of each others’ badges to commemorate their involvement in a shooting, commonly referred to as badge bending.

The petition, which surpassed 1,000 signatures in less than a month, also demands the Vallejo City Council enter into a five-year agreement with California DOJ to extend and expand its oversight of the police department; be put under court-ordered monitoring as part of the civil lawsuit brought on behalf of Willie McCoy, who Vallejo police shot 38 times in 2019; and bring in the OIR Group as an independent auditor, as the council approved in 2021 but was never executed.

Implementing those changes and installing meaningful oversight continues to be an uphill battle in Vallejo. Only recently did the city open the application process for people to sit on the city’s yet-to-be-established police oversight board.

The Monterrosa family says they’re still trying to trust the process that Tonn and other Vallejo police officers will be held accountable, but they won’t stop applying pressure on people, including Bonta, who they supported for attorney general. They are currently collecting signatures for a petition demanding that Bonta prosecute Tonn. Bonta is reportedly considering running for governor in 2026.

“He has a duty. He championed to be the people's attorney, and it's not lost on me that he can,” Michelle said. “It's just a matter of when you're going to do right by the working class, the people, the real people who keep California going.”

“I think all we have left is hope, other than the work that we do, is that he really does right by the community,” Ashley said.