ANTIOCH — Multiple community organizers are calling for the city’s acting police chief and the president of its police officers’ union to step down amid revelations that they and other police supervisors signed off on the use of force by police officers who are now charged with federal civil rights violations.
The latest demands for the Antioch Police Department to clean house follow a Bay Area News Group report that found acting police Chief Joseph Vigil, Sgt. Rick Hoffman — the president of the Antioch Police Officers Association — and others concluded time and again that the actions of the charged officers followed department guidelines and deserved no discipline. The FBI, in a criminal indictment of three officers, found that some of the uses of force violated departmental policies — as well as people’s civil rights.
“They’re the problem — they signed off on all this. Now they’re watching the henhouse,” said Frank Sterling Jr., an Antioch resident and a member of Reimagine Antioch, who personally sued the department and Hoffman over alleged police brutality.
Leaders of the ACCE Contra Costa Antioch Chapter said they were “disgusted and appalled” by the department’s leaders and called for Vigil and Hoffman to immediately step down “for their attempts to deny justice.” The group also called for a review of the shooting of Daniel Mackin, who was injured last month after four Antioch officers fired dozens of shots at the armed 30-year-old man as he ran from them.
Francisco Torres, of the Reimagine Antioch coalition, said he was “astonished” to learn of the police supervisors’ actions. He called for an investigation into Vigil and the department’s other supervisors — adding that if they weren’t found competent to lead the agency, then they needed to go.
The coalition is organizing a rally on Saturday afternoon outside the Antioch Police Department calling for greater oversight of the department, as well as the firing and decertification of officers implicated in the agency’s racist texting scandal. Already, dozens of officers, including Hoffman, are on leave in connection to that scandal.
“The community is scared, the community is in doubt — we don’t see things moving forward,” Torres said. He added that the city needed to create a “serious” means of police accountability and that so far “it seems like our community can’t count on the City Council or city manager to do that.”
The recent investigation by this news organization found that police supervisors tasked with reviewing officers’ use of force consistently OK’d their actions.
In one instance, after Officer Eric Rombough fired a less-lethal projectile at a man who was backing toward officers with his hand on his head, Hoffman concluded that the use of “force appears to be within policy,” records obtained by this news organization show. The Aug. 31, 2021, incident was cited by the FBI as part of the alleged “scheme” to violate Antioch residents’ civil rights that became the subject of a federal indictment against Rombough and officers Morteza Amiri and Devon Wenger.
Vigil — then a lieutenant — signed off on Hoffman’s review, writing that “the Use of Force observed was consistent with agency best practices and policy,” the records showed. Another lieutenant, Desmond Bittner, also agreed that “no action” was necessary.
Attempts by this newspaper to reach Vigil were unsuccessful. He was appointed acting chief after in the wake of Chief Steven Ford’s abrupt resignation earlier this year.
Michael Rains, an attorney representing Hoffman, called the sergeant an “outstanding police officer” who was being “unfairly maligned.” He added that Hoffman gave a voluntary interview with federal investigators, who later indicted several Antioch officers on numerous charges.
“If the feds thought he was in on a scheme to violate people’s constitutional rights, I suspect he would have been charged criminally as one of the member of the conspiracy to violate people’s civil rights. And he wasn’t,” Rains said.
Mayor Lamar Thorpe — also a target of racist texts sent between Antioch officers — declined to say whether Vigil should remain acting chief of the department. But he reiterated a desire for City Council to be given the power to hire and fire police chiefs, a duty that currently rests with Antioch’s city manager.
Over the summer, the council failed to pass a proposal that would have given council members the authority to hire, fire and supervise the police chief. The measure passed a first reading but failed on the council’s second vote after Mayor Pro Tempore Tamisha Torres-Walker revised her stance on the issue and asked for that authority to end after a year or as soon as a new permanent city manager was named.
Calls to Torres-Walker, as well as fellow council members Michael Barbanica, Lori Ogorchock and Monica Wilson, were not returned.
Some East Contra Costa County residents have grown weary of the pace of reform at the Antioch Police Department — particularly given how quickly other agencies, such as the San Jose Police Department, have moved against officers accused of holding racist views.
On Thursday, for example, San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said his department had sought to decertify Officer Mark McNamara who — just the week prior — had resigned after the publication of messages showing his mocking a shooting he was involved in and writing to another officer, “I hate Black people.” The decertification process effectively bars officers from serving in law enforcement again.
Eddie Gums, co-chair for ACCE Antioch, said residents in Antioch deserve better.
“Especially as a man of color, a Black man, it’s just totally threatening,” said Eddie Gums, co-chair for ACCE Antioch. “And what are you to do to protect your children, your wife, your loved ones. It’s like taking a page out of history and going back in time. The civil rights movement hasn’t gotten here yet.”
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
