Judge Releases Names Of 17 California Cops Accused Of Sending Racist Texts & Memes

FBI agents dis­cov­ered the texts last month after search­ing the res­i­dences and seiz­ing the phones of sev­er­al Antioch offi­cers amid a probe into alle­ga­tions of fraud, bribery, drug dis­tri­b­u­tion and civ­il rights breaches.
The names of 17 California-based police offi­cers sus­pect­ed of using racist epi­thets, jokes and memes in text con­ver­sa­tions are now pub­lic information.
According to the East Bay Times, Contra Costa County Judge Clare Maier issued a warn­ing before dis­clos­ing the names, say­ing the com­mu­ni­ca­tions’ foul nature could “incite fur­ther hate or racial animus.”
However, she con­tend­ed that the California evi­dence code should not be used to pro­tect infor­ma­tion about the texts, includ­ing the Antioch police offi­cers’ iden­ti­ties. Maier said the inflam­ma­to­ry com­mu­ni­ca­tions start­ed in September 2019 and con­tin­ued until January 2022, when FBI agents seized the offi­cers’ phones and oth­er items.

“I’ve had my eye on Antioch for a long time,” civ­il rights attor­ney Adante Pointer said Friday, accord­ing to the Times. “This is proof-pos­i­tive what peo­ple who have been watch­ing Antioch already knew — that it is full of offi­cers who do not deserve to wear the badge.” The ros­ter of embat­tled offi­cers includes Rick Hoffman, the head of the Antioch Police Association. Hoffman — who has fre­quent­ly crit­i­cized Antioch may­or and police reform advo­cate Lamar Thorpe — is one of at least eight Antioch offi­cers on leave because of the texts. Six oth­er offi­cers whose alleged crim­i­nal activ­i­ty is already being looked at by the FBI — Devon Wenger, Eric Rombough, Andrea Rodriguez, Calvin Prieto, Morteza Amiri and Tim Manly, who has resigned — are also list­ed. While Maier did not spec­i­fy what each offi­cer sent out, she described the mes­sages as “deeply dis­turb­ing” and direct­ed toward “mem­bers of the Black and Hispanic community.”
Investigators accused Rombough, Manly and fel­low offi­cers Jonathan Adams, Scott Duggar, Joshua Evans, Robert Gerber, Brock Marcotte and Thomas Smith of men­tion­ing four alleged Oakland-based ENT gang mem­bers in texts sent over a 10-day peri­od in March 2021, when Antioch police were eaves­drop­ping on the sus­pects’ phones.

Contra Costa County courts will deter­mine whether or not the mes­sages are suf­fi­cient grounds for drop­ping any charges lodged against peo­ple the offi­cers were inves­ti­gat­ing. That includes any­one the offi­cers men­tioned explic­it­ly in the texts and any Black or Latino per­son inves­ti­gat­ed or detained, since they might claim they faced dis­crim­i­na­tion because of their race.
“It’s no won­der why the pub­lic has lost faith in law enforce­ment,” said Pointer, the Times report­ed, “and why we see Black and Brown peo­ple over­rep­re­sent­ed in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem when the peo­ple admin­is­ter­ing it are racist.”
The evi­dence will like­ly reap­pear in oth­er crim­i­nal tri­als involv­ing those par­tic­u­lar police offi­cers and the oth­er law­men Maier men­tioned: Aaron Hughes, Brayton Milner, John Ramirez and Kyle Smith.
The FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of fraud, bribery, drug dis­tri­b­u­tion and breach­es of civ­il rights linked to using force with­in the Antioch and Pittsburg police depart­ments. The agency dis­cov­ered the offi­cers’ texts last month after exe­cut­ing search war­rants at the res­i­dences of sev­er­al offi­cers, arriv­ing at the police sta­tion to con­fis­cate phones and oth­er per­son­al belongings.

Michael Rains, the attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Antioch police offi­cers, said he hadn’t received any text mes­sages and is unaware of their alleged con­tent. Racial con­flict has been sim­mer­ing for years in the north­ern California city of about 100,000 peo­ple as gen­tri­fi­ca­tion in the west­ern Bay Area uproot­ed San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond res­i­dents and moved them into the deep East Bay. Antioch had a 65 per­cent white pop­u­la­tion in 2000. According to cen­sus data, the Black pop­u­la­tion has expand­ed from 10 to 20 per­cent dur­ing the past two decades, notes the Times, while white inhab­i­tants account for 39 per­cent, and Latinos or Hispanics make up 34.5 per­cent of the city’s residents.
According to Mayor Thorpe, Antioch’s police depart­ment would “absolute­ly” face staffing chal­lenges because of the num­ber of offi­cers now on leave. “But if that’s what they’re doing (mak­ing racist and homo­pho­bic texts),” he said, “I don’t want them here.”

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