11 Oct Antioch to Spend Up to $500k, Bring in Outside Officers in Attempt to Reduce Violence

(Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

The Antioch City Council on Tuesday allocated up to $500,000 towards a violence reduction initiative that will pay officers from outside agencies up to $200 per hour over the next year.

The allocation follows more than a dozen shootings just last month near the Sycamore Drive corridor, which for years has seen large amounts of gun violence.

“This is a temporary measure,” said Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe. “It is not a forever thing.”

The shooting of Elijah Scales, a 21-year-old who later died, marked the beginning of the recent spate of gun violence. The Antioch Police Department has said that some of the shootings — including one at a memorial ceremony for Scales — may be related to his shooting.

The initiative, which originally would have authorized double-time pay to Antioch officers if they worked extra shifts, is necessary, according to APD, because low staffing doesn’t allow personnel to handle current workloads and additional crime reduction initiatives.

Low staffing levels are largely due to a racist text message scandal involving Antioch officers. Those messages detailed beating up suspects and falsifying evidence.

Council members and residents during public comment said they were worried about pushing officers who are already working mandatory overtime shifts.

“We don’t want to overwork our staff. These officers who carry badges and firearms, they’re people too,” resident Daniel Owens said. “All you need is maybe an officer who was on his 16th hour or 18th hour who dealt with a situation on the other side of the city…and it could lead to some problems.”

Council member Tamisha Torres-Walker supported bringing in outside agencies — calling it the “most important part” of the initiative  — to help but also expressed concerns with approving double-time pay for Antioch officers.

She also noted that the initiative was not violence prevention but violence reduction, saying that reduction efforts would be done in conjunction with police efforts.

What this initiative “really does is increase police presence in communities where it’s needed the most,” she said. “Often when violence occurs in communities, our most reactionary response is a visible police presence to very preventable issues. Had we invested up front in the prevention of violence, we wouldn’t need to respond in” this way.

Many residents during public comment shared Torres-Walkers’ comments but prefaced them by saying they weren’t anti-police.

Torres-Walker addressed those residents.

“You are not anti-police if you want accountability. You are not anti-police if you want the money spent somewhere else,” she said. “For some people, that includes police, but police aren’t the end all be all.”

The next Antioch City Council meeting is Oct. 22.