Families, civil-rights groups press POST to investigate Vallejo officers in packed public comment session

Dozens of residents and family members of people killed in encounters with police urged the Peace Officers Standards Accountability Advisory Board on Oct. 17, 2024 to investigate and decertify officers from the Vallejo Police Department.

Why it matters: Many speakers described long-standing community distrust of the department and said local accountability mechanisms have failed. Several families — some of whom said their relatives were shot by Vallejo officers — asked POST to use its decertification authority to prevent officers alleged to have committed serious misconduct from becoming officers elsewhere.

What speakers said - Marshall Arnoy, legal policy advocate for the ACLU of Northern California, said the organization had submitted a formal complaint naming nine officers and asked POST to use statutory authority for decertification: "Public records show that there are current Vallejo officers who are alleged to have committed serious misconduct warranting an urgent decertification review by post as required by California Penal Code 13510.9," he said.

- Family members of people killed in Vallejo made emotional appeals. Angela Sullivan said her son Ronnell DeAngelo Foster was killed on Feb. 13, 2018 and called for action against officers she said were involved: "Murder is murder. Decertification is just the start," she told the board.

- Several speakers, including Melissa Knowles, a Vallejo civil‑rights attorney, told the board they had brought complaints and internal concerns to Vallejo officials and to the U.S. Department of Justice in past years and said investigations or discipline were not adequate. Knowles said whistleblowers had reported irregular hiring and that some officers "should not be there."

POST staff response and process guidance Assistant Executive Director Anne Marie Delmanayo told the audience the division was reviewing the ACLU complaint, and that when the division completes investigations it will notify affected officers and then a charge and investigative summary may be presented to the board. The division also noted that ex parte and due-process rules limit what can be done publicly during preliminary review: "We're trying to balance the right of the public to comment, with the due process protections to ensure that these matters can be brought down the road without any due process challenge," Chief Counsel William Darden explained, citing POST's statutory process and the Administrative Procedure Act.

What the board can and cannot do now Board members and staff repeatedly told the public that POST can review agency investigations, pursue independent investigations and, where warranted, seek decertification. They also warned that discussing the details of pending investigations in public could create procedural problems if cases later move to formal administrative hearings. Anne Marie Delmanayo advised members of the public that POST would help people file complaints and that intake staff were available to assist.

Ending POST officials said they had received the ACLU filing and were reviewing whether the division already had open investigations; the division asked complainants to submit materials and assured the audience that complaints would be evaluated under POST's statutory thresholds for serious misconduct. "If those matters are being investigated now, then notice is given to the person who is the center of the investigation," DELmanayo said; if the investigation leads to a department recommendation to revoke, the officer may appeal and public comment would again be permitted at that stage.