18 Sep Former Antioch Officer Convicted of Civil Rights Abuses as Department Tries to Clean Up Its Culture

Bella Quinto Collins, sister of Angelo Quinto, holds signs in protest against the Antioch Police officers involved in the racist text scandal in the department during a hearing involving the officers at A.F. Bray Courthouse in Martinez on July 21, 2023. Quinto died from complications three days after being knelt on the neck by an Antioch police officer. (Harika Maddala / Bay City News / Catchlight Local)

By Katy St. Clair
Bay City News

A former Antioch police officer caught up in the department’s civil rights abuses was convicted of conspiracy against rights, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday, a week after the City Council received its first report from the man hired to oversee the department’s “shape up or ship out” agreement with the DOJ.

Former officer Devon Wenger, 33, conspired with other Antioch officers to use unreasonable force to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate residents of the city, a federal jury found.

The uses of excessive force including gratuitous siccing of a police dog on suspects, using less-lethal 40mm launchers, “and other unnecessary violence,” prosecutors said.

Wenger also hid his activity from police reports and other official documents.

In March, former officer Morteza Amiri was also convicted of deprivation of rights and for using his police K-9 to assault suspects.

“Amiri kept a running bite count that he celebrated with other officers,” prosecutors said. “Amiri also took photographs of the dog bites and shared them with other officers, stating in one text message that ‘gory pics are for personal stuff’ and ‘cleaned up pics for the case.’ ”

In June, Amiri was given seven years in federal prison.

In addition to bringing federal cases against Antioch officers, the DOJ entered into an agreement with the Police Department in January to overhaul its culture of racism and meet specific standards of compliance.

The independent consultant hired to monitor the notorious Antioch Police Department’s compliance with federal oversight is cautiously optimistic that the department will meet its reform goals. Not doing so will not only further erode public trust, but could have an expensive outcome, city leaders have said.

Former Martinez Police Chief Manjit Sappal was selected as the consultant to monitor the city’s agreement with the DOJ. He told the Antioch City Council on Sept. 9 that building a sustainable culture within a police department takes time.

“Someone once told me that it takes about seven miles for a plane, for a large plane, to make a turn, and it takes about seven years for an organization to change culture,” said Sappal.

The culture that everyone from the community, elected officials and even the Police Department agrees needed changing first came to light in 2023 when dozens of homophobic, racist, sexist and generally offensive text exchanges between officers were revealed.

In 2023, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office in conjunction with the FBI released a report on the scandal, pinpointing 14 officers by name and describing a culture of racial bias and “animus towards African Americans and other people of color in the community,” according to the report.

One example in the district attorney’s report showed a text from Officer John Ramirez joking about shooting Antioch’s then-mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe, a Black man.

“I’ll buy someone a prime rib dinner,” he texted about the proposition.

Other officers were found referring to both Minneapolis police brutality victim George Floyd and then-Antioch Police Chief Steve Ford, both African Americans, as “gorillas.”

Sappal’s macro strategy for getting the department back on track involves a slow and steady influx of new recruits who come into the job understanding what is expected of them and knowing that they are held to a high standard. As the old adage goes, the culture of excellence must come from the top.

“Fundamentally, you have to have training and policies and accountability in the organization, so that all the new folks that are being hired know nothing else,” said Sappal.

Sappal added that as the department improves, it starts to attract a “different caliber” of officers.

“Folks with this generation (of officers) … can communicate fairly well, they’re open-minded, and I think you have good training, good policies, good leadership, you’ve got the magic ingredients to succeed.”

The tenets of the agreement between the city and the DOJ were to hire a consultant, which was done by taking on Sappal, implementing non-discriminatory policing, ensuring the Antioch Police Oversight Commission that formed in 2022 remains robust and assists with bringing the department into compliance, hiring and promoting highly qualified officers committed to the new department culture, and significantly improving data collection and analysis.

The department’s complaint and misconduct protocols are also supposed to be overhauled.

Antioch has five years to come into full compliance, according to the agreement, but should things move along faster than that, the DOJ could accept an early termination of the agreement. However, if the department doesn’t meet its goals, the agreement turns into a consent decree. If that happens, the city could face legal challenges.

“The Department of Justice can come back and sue the city, and this will no longer be an agreement,” said Sappal. “It’ll be a consent decree, and we want to avoid that at all costs.”

According to Sappal, the department has reached “substantial compliance” in hiring a consultant — him — in May, with its community engagement plan, and with some of its non-discriminatory policing training.

He said though they were having difficulty finding certified trainers on the West Coast who know the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, which is known as the gold standard. An interim plan to reach that goal has a deadline of Nov. 24.

The department has only reached partial compliance in hiring and promotions, data collection, complaints and misconduct (with a goal set for Oct. 15) and a language access plan to improve communication with the public or between officers in the field and the community.

At least one council member isn’t as optimistic about the department’s progress. In July, council member Don Freitas “rang the bell,” in his words, that the city may become out of compliance due to timelines. On Sept. 9, he said the council needs to know before problems arise, not after, and the council needed more communication from Sappal outside of the quarterly reports he has agreed to present.

“I think, particularly as a monitor, your role to the mayor and the City Council and to the community is to alert us,” he said.

Seppal demurred, saying that he reports to the police chief first, followed by the city manager and city attorney, “because they have a vested interest in ensuring we comply,” he said.

“So you know,” said Freitas, “we’re not able to act unless we have knowledge. And that’s the bottom line, from my perspective.”

But Freitas didn’t lay all the blame on Sappal. He also said that the Antioch Police Oversight Commission was supposed to bring issues or concerns to the council and hasn’t.

The ultimate test of the department’s progress won’t come solely from reports or compliance standards, it will come from the community itself, Sappal said.

“I think the most important piece is feedback from the community, and I think that’s really, ultimately, what’s going to be your barometer for success,” he said. “If folks have better interactions with the officers, if they’re complaining less, if they find that they’re being treated fairly and with respect and dignity, that’s your benchmark.”

Wenger, the former officer, is facing up to 10 years in federal prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 2, according to prosecutors.

Six former Antioch officers including Amiri have also been convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud by hiring someone to get degrees for them so that they could receive higher salaries, the DOJ said.

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