Justice Division resolves investigation of Antioch Police Division over racist texts
The Division of Justice introduced on Friday it has resolved a biased policing investigation of California’s Antioch Police Division, the place racist texts allegedly despatched by officers sparked outrage and blowback.
Town and its police have agreed to rent a advisor to evaluate its insurance policies, its officer coaching, and its use-of-force incidents to recommend enhancements, the Justice Division mentioned in a press release.
The events agreed to a framework for federal monitoring, to the institution of a stronger accountability position for its oversight physique, and to the gathering of knowledge on the division’s interactions for 5 years, it mentioned.
“In working with the Justice Division to institute policing reform, Antioch Police Division sends a robust message that the discrimination and misconduct that prompted this investigation won’t be tolerated,” Assistant Legal professional Basic Kristen Clarke of the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division mentioned in Friday’s announcement.
The Antioch Police Division mentioned Friday that it welcomes the settlement because it continues to cooperate with a separate California Division of Justice investigation of biased policing.
“The actions that prompted this investigation had been unacceptable and failures occurred,” the police division mentioned in its assertion. “We’ll implement and improve complete insurance policies, practices, coaching packages, group engagement initiatives, and oversight mechanisms to make sure that officers uphold integrity and equity whereas addressing misconduct swiftly and successfully.”
The Justice Division mentioned its investigation was sparked by racist texts allegedly exchanged by officers from late 2019 to early 2022, which included homophobic and racist slurs and one suggestion {that a} “much less deadly” weapon be used on town’s mayor, who’s Black and in his fifth yr as the highest chief of Antioch.
Texts allegedly included bragging about beating suspects and manufacturing proof, based on a 2023 report compiled by the Contra Costa County District Legal professional’s Workplace after it and the FBI investigated the racist texts.
The DA’s workplace report impressed the Justice Division’s personal investigation in June 2023, it mentioned.
The Antioch Police Officers Affiliation, which represents sworn, rank-and-file staff in metropolis contract negotiations, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Antioch, a metropolis of greater than 117,000 about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, is greater than 2/3 non-white, greater than 1/3 Hispanic or Latino, and about 1/5 Black, based on U.S. Census Bureau information.
After the DA’s workplace report was launched below the order of a neighborhood decide, outrage erupted and civil rights lawsuits had been filed.
An arson and mutilation case towards two males charged in reference to the invention of the burned physique of Mykaella Sharlman, 25, was dropped in 2023 after the texts had been revealed. Prosecutors mentioned the prosecution’s reliance on officers concerned within the scandal would not survive a jury’s scrutiny.
“The Contra Costa District Legal professional’s Workplace now not has confidence within the integrity of this prosecution,” it mentioned in a press release in 2023.
Sister Nicole Eason mentioned the officers’ texts should not have had such an have an effect on and prompt Sharlman’s household was able to take the matter to civil court docket. Prosecutors mentioned they had been looking for different methods — moreover counting on the officers, who weren’t recognized — to resolve the case. No civil circumstances seem to have been filed in Contra Costa County in reference to Sharlman’s dying.
4 individuals who say their civil rights had been violated by Antioch law enforcement officials and a fifth whose father was fatally shot by officers introduced a federal lawsuit towards town in April 2023. The civil motion was ongoing, although a number of events have settled their claims, based on court docket data.
Eight officers within the texting report had been positioned on administrative depart, three had been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate” residents, and a type of three resigned. Efforts to succeed in the three had been unsuccessful on the time of the indictment in 2023.
Michael Rains, a lawyer who represented a few of the officers concerned within the texting talked about within the report, mentioned in 2023 that the variety of officers concerned within the texting was low.
“Recommendations in lots of media accounts that inappropriate textual content messaging was widespread … was merely not the case,” he mentioned on the time.
Rains didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Friday evening concerning the Justice Division’s decision.
