Vallejo police solicit feedback on new complaint policy

VALLEJO – The Vallejo Police Department is soliciting feedback on a revised complaints policy, considering years of criticism around how the city handles misconduct allegations.

The new draft policy, out for public comment through April 24, outlines the procedures for accepting, classifying, investigating and resolving complaints against Vallejo police personnel. Vallejo police said it includes safeguards to ensure all complaints are handled with impartiality and transparency and that all complaints will be accepted without delay, bias or retaliation, per state law.

The draft complaints policy released Monday says that the department’s online complaint form will be revamped to be more user-friendly and will also include information from the newly-formed Police Oversight and Accountability Commission. Every complaint against a sworn officer will be tracked and investigated in the new system, and all commission members will be notified and involved, according to commission Chair John Lewis. 

Under the new policy, complainants will receive a copy of their statement and may submit additional information while getting real-time updates on their complaint. The department says it will distribute complaint forms and information in its headquarters front lobby, website and throughout the community. It will also maintain a new online public portal where community members can submit complaints, available in multiple languages.

The city will continue to accept complaints from people in person, online, by phone, email, mail or anonymously. All complaints will be documented, reviewed by a supervisor, and followed up, according to Vallejo police. 

The department said its Professional Standards Division will still oversee the handling of all complaints and will perform annual audits of the process. Any attempt to interfere with or retaliate against a complainant, witness, or cooperating party will result in disciplinary action, which can include termination. 

The Vallejo Police Department will host a town hall meeting on April 30 to present the draft complaint policy and hear from community members. During April, residents can use myvallejo.com to view the old complaints policy and the draft policy, and can write feedback for consideration.

Members of the city’s police oversight commission discussed the policy Monday night at a special meeting to gather initial feedback and answer questions from the public about the draft policy. 

But some people criticized the short opportunity to review the policy ahead of the meeting. While the meeting was noticed Friday, the Vallejo Police Department released information about the draft policy Monday, just hours ahead of the meeting. The city also only allowed people who attended in person to participate in breakout discussions, leaving several virtual attendees disgruntled.

Lewis said that he noticed in the breakout session that members of the police department answered questions about many parts of the policy. But, he said, “What I was hearing is a real need for FAQs and really putting POAC front and center in the complaint process.”

“One thing is clear: we can’t go forward with these kinds of meetings,” Lewis added. “We need to have small group meetings in the community, [with] each of us POAC members. These are the people that we need to be talking to in the community, and then [to] bring that feedback to the group.”

Assistant City Attorney Randy Risner said that he heard from different community members that people want clear, understandable materials with context provided. He said the policy must help people understand the entire process from the filing of a complaint to the handling of it, and by whom. “We need to explain who is it for and what is it surrounded by … richly describing the context of the process,” Risner said.

City Attorney Veronica Nebb added that the draft policy includes the role of an independent firm hired by the California Department of Justice to assess the city’s progress toward each of the 45 reforms required by the state in a 2020 agreement. The creation of the oversight commission was one of the required reforms. 

The city entered the agreement with the Justice Department days after a Vallejo police officer shot and killed Sean Monterrosa. Months later, the department was rocked by public revelations that officers were bending the tips of their badges to mark shootings. There have been repeated allegations about complaints being buried or ignored by the department. The city admitted that the department kept a separate filing cabinet of complaints that were not turned over to courts as required, and a former deputy chief alleged in a lawsuit that investigators allowed complaints to languish for over a year so that officers couldn’t be disciplined.

In public comment, resident Jose Rosales, who attended in person, criticized the police department’s announcement about the policy being released less than 24 hours before the meeting, not giving the public time to process and ask questions. 

He said he did not understand why citizens have to be patient with this process. “We as citizens have had years and years of abuse. Should the expectation and onus be on us?” he asked. “We have earned the right to have this process be done correctly, and not in their [the department’s] favor.”

Sana Sethi, an organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said she hopes that in the future, community members will get three weeks of notice to review materials for items the commission will discuss in public meetings.

She said the ACLU sent a letter to the commission on Monday outlining issues it has with the complaint policy, including to improve clarity. 

The ACLU’s letter, which was shared with the Vallejo Sun, named some changes the organization wants in the draft policy, such as making clear what the police department’s obligations to the commission are. 

Senior staff attorney Allyssa Victory wrote that the policy must fully detail the procedures for the department to implement the law regarding the city’s independent police oversight structure and personnel complaints. She also said that the policy should include the police chief’s responsibilities to the commission, “including to immediately forward all personnel complaints.” Victory also noted that the draft policy must be clear that it pertains to complaints about specific personnel, which can include or trigger complaints about underlying policy or training. 

The ACLU also suggested a more generalized definition for organizing complaints, by clearly defining what is a “serious misconduct” category and then what a “general” category is for other complaints. 

Resident Robert Schussel, in comments ahead of the meeting, criticized other parts of the draft policy, questioning the policy’s handling of an annual report on the outcomes of each personnel complaint investigation. “As only the chief of police sees this information, where are the checks and balances?” he wrote. “In the badge bending episodes, the chief sat on the information.”

Nebb said the commission will give its official feedback on the draft policy by the next meeting on April 9. However, Lewis told the Vallejo Sun that the commission will have until early May to request changes.