san francisco — A Northern California city whose police department came under national scrutiny after it was revealed that some officers shared racist and sexist texts, used excessive force and falsified records has reached a settlement agreement to implement a series of reforms, officials announced Friday.
The city of Antioch, in the San Francisco Bay Area, will strengthen police training programs, create an independent review board to handle complaints and implement a warning system to identify problem officers, according to an agreement to settle the civil rights lawsuit filed in 2023.
“This agreement allows the Antioch Police Department to start with a clean slate, oversee officers’ conduct and ensure they comply with new standards,” said John Burris, who filed the complaint in federal court on behalf of residents who said they were targeted by Antioch police officers.
Earlier this year, 23 people who were part of the lawsuit reached a $4.6 million settlement with Antioch seeking financial damages, Burris said. The city announced in January that it would hire a consultant to update its policies and procedures and provide training on various topics as part of an agreement with the US Department of Justice.
“A lot of the corrupt elements have disappeared, been imprisoned, retired or been left alone, and there is a new leadership team that seems committed to bringing about change,” Boris said.
The settlement agreement advances work already underway and “ensures sustainable transparency measures and updates essential policies to modernize how APD continues to provide constitutional police services to the residents of Antioch,” Antioch City Manager Bessie Marie Scott said in a statement.
The FBI and county prosecutors in March 2022 began investigating police officers in Antioch and Pittsburgh, a neighboring city, over a wide range of crimes. As part of the investigation, officials released racist, obscenity-laden text messages shared by 45 Antioch police officers Which shocked the community.
Officers referred to some of the suspects as “gorillas.” They also laughed and joked about harming people who appeared to have surrendered or appeared to be asleep by placing a police dog on them or shooting them with a “less-lethal” 40mm projectile launcher, according to a federal indictment against three former Antioch police officers.
Federal prosecutors charged Morteza Amiri, Eric Rumbo and Devon Christopher Wenger said the three former Antioch police officers conspired between February 2019 and March 2022 to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate the residents of Antioch, California,” and later falsified reports about the encounters.
Wenger was sentenced earlier this month to seven years and six months in prison on charges of conspiring to harm, oppress, threaten or intimidate Antioch residents by using unreasonable force, conspiracy to distribute steroids, and obstruction of justice, federal prosecutors said.
Amiri, a former Antioch K9 officer, was sentenced in June to seven years in prison for maiming a person with his police dog, falsifying reports about that case, and participating in a scheme to get pay raises from the Antioch Police Department in exchange for a college degree he paid someone else to obtain.
Rumbo, who was accused of illegally shooting people with his launcher, pleaded guilty and became a witness for the government. The East Bay Times reported that he testified against Amiri and Wenger in their separate trials. He is scheduled to be sentenced on January 13.
Antioch, a city of 115,000 located about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of San Francisco, was once majority white but has diversified in the past 30 years.