Vallejo police oversight body approves independent police auditor

VALLEJO - Vallejo’s Police Oversight and Accountability Commission last week approved hiring a nonprofit police oversight firm to act as the city’s independent police auditor, which would review investigations into officer misconduct and make recommendations regarding discipline.

The commission voted unanimously at its meeting Aug. 6 to approve a contract with the nonprofit Effective Law Enforcement for All as the independent auditor.

The commission created an ad hoc subcommittee which recommended the nonprofit after interviewing several organizations in June. Effective Law Enforcement for All estimated its costs would be up to $214,775 annually, which would cover assisting with “five serious incidents and six bias incident reports per year.” The staff report to council said that the costs were already identified in the 2026-27 budget.  

Some of the work Effective Law Enforcement for All will take on includes attending interviews of witnesses and subjects during any investigation of incidents assigned to an independent investigator or the department’s internal affairs division, and reviewing all final investigatory reports to provide a recommendation on the findings to the commission or the police chief. The firm will have subpoena authority for records and other relevant materials.

The firm says its purpose is to “help police, civic and community leaders partner to reinvent law” around policing. The nonprofit was also selected as an independent evaluator to handle police reforms in Minneapolis in February and has worked with Louisville, Kentucky, and other cities to revise law enforcement policies and practices.

California attorney Mark P. Smith will lead the auditing work in Vallejo. He previously worked as the independent monitor overseeing the city of Portland’s compliance with a settlement agreement, as the Inspector General for the Los Angeles Police Department, the constitutional policing advisor to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the first independent police auditor for BART.

“This was not a cake walk,” commission Vice Chair Renee Sykes said. “We feel good about this organization, and we hope they will do their best to honor and hear the residents of Vallejo.”

However, the nonprofit must first complete paperwork to practice law in California, according to Chief Assistant City Attorney Randy Risner. Risner said this process should not take more than a few weeks, adding, “We don’t think this is a big deal.” 

Risner said the resolution contains language that would allow the city manager to contract with a second candidate if the firm cannot complete the process to register in California. That second candidate would be IntegrAssure LLC, run by Jeff Schlanger of Palm Beach, Florida, which has also acted as independent auditor for other cities such as Petaluma and San Leandro, according to the city staff report.

The independent auditor tasked with assisting the commission on investigations regarding the Vallejo Police Department is separate from the city’s independent evaluator Jensen Hughes, which is overseeing reform efforts and reporting directly to the California Department of Justice under a 60-page settlement agreement. The commission is also seeking outside legal counsel out of a desire expressed by members to handle its business independently of the city attorney’s office.

Some Vallejoans have said they remain skeptical of how independent any legal firm selected by the city could be. Kori McCoy, brother of Willie McCoy, who was killed by six Vallejo police officers in 2019 after he was found unresponsive in a Taco Bell drive-thru, told the Vallejo Sun before the Aug. 4 City Council meeting that he doesn’t have faith in the commission getting truly independent legal advice. “You have a city attorney’s office that doesn’t separate itself from the Police Department or Cty Council,” he said.

“They’re only going to hire people they know are going to be favorable to them,” he said of the city. “It’s no different than when [retired Sonoma County Sheriff Rob] Giordano did the badge bending report. You’re not going to get a fair shake with these independent investigators or counsel. I’m looking for a total change, to clean out this corrupt attorney’s office. You still have officers working for this department that are killers.”

McCoy expressed his distrust of the commission as well. “I don’t know who these people are, I don’t know if they reach out to impacted families,” he said. “I don’t put a lot of faith into these investigations. It’s about them trying to control the narrative as best they can.”