The indictments and arrests follow an 18-month-long investigation on racist text messages shared between members of the Antioch Police Depar
Dozens of community members, families of police violence and activists joined a rally outside of the Antioch Police Department on April 18, 2023, to protest the racist and homophobic text messages shared among the department. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
The FBI arrested nine East Bay police officers on Thursday for alleged civil rights violations, interfering with investigations and defrauding their employers, Ismail Ramsey, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said at a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
The arrests were made in a series of raids early Thursday morning across and beyond the Bay Area, following an 18-month FBI investigation and the release of four federal grand jury indictments against the officers. Charges include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, deprivation of civil rights and destruction of records.
“Today is a dark day in our city’s history, as people trusted to uphold the law, allegedly breached that trust and were arrested by the FBI,” Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a written statement shortly after the arrests. “As our city absorbs this tragic news, we must come together as one. Today’s actions are the beginning of the end of a long and arduous process.”
The FBI arrested nine officers on Thursday and a total of 10 have been charged across four indictments, federal law enforcement officials said at the press conference Thursday. Eight of those arrested have made initial court appearances so far.
“This case is one of the highest priorities for the San Francisco Field Office,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp. “Law enforcement officers bear a tremendous responsibility to police out communities lawfully in keeping with the constitution, and we must always be true to that guiding principle.”A chart showing the list of charges against Antioch and Pittsburg police officers by a federal grand jury on Aug. 16, 2023. (Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman/KQED)
“Today’s announcement reporting the arrest of current and former APD officers is disheartening and undermines the incredible work our staff does on a daily basis,” Acting Antioch Chief of Police Joe Vigil said in a press release. “Any police officer who breaks public trust must be held accountable, especially because our effectiveness relies heavily on confidence and support from our community.”
The first indictment includes charges against Morteza Amiri and Samantha Genoveva Peterson of the APD, along with Pittsburg Police Department officers Brauli Rodriguez Jalapa, Ernesto Juan Mejia-Orozco, and Amanda Carmella Theodosy-Nash, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and faking college credits in order to receive pay bumps.
The second indictment alleges that APD officers Daniel Harris and Devon Wenger illegally obtained and distributed anabolic steroids, and for attempting to destroy evidence that they had tried to do so.
Timothy Manly Williams of the APD was indicted on obstruction of evidence and for destroying and falsifying records to obstruct a federal investigation using a wiretap.
The fourth and final indictment announced Thursday alleges that Morteza Amiri, Eric Rombough and Devon Wenger, all with the APD, carried out what Ramsey called a “disturbing litany” of civil rights violations. The violations include inappropriately deploying a canine and other weapons in order to deliberately harm individuals in Antioch.
Ramsey said that officers shared photos of their victims’ injuries and collected mementos from attacks, such as ammunition used against people of Antioch. “Defendants boasted about their illegal uses of force,” the federal attorney said.
The investigation is still ongoing.
The indictments and subsequent arrests mark a turning point for many members of the community who have been reeling from the recent police scandals.
The investigation kicked off in 2022 after concerns were raised about police officers who lied about their college degrees. But the FBI and Contra Costa County district attorney’s investigation into the local police department would reveal far more crimes and civil rights violations from Antioch and Pittsburg officers.
Among discoveries was a culture of explicitly racist and homophobic messages sent between numerous Antioch police officers. The investigation revealed officers not only using racial epithets including the N-word and describing Black people as “gorillas,” but it also showed officers had falsified confessions to build cases and physically assault suspects.
In several messages, the officers bragged about racial profiling and beating suspects.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched a separate civil rights investigation into the APD in May, after it was revealed that officers had exchanged racist and homophobic text messages about community members and people in custody.
“It is our job to protect and serve all of our communities,” Bonta said in a press release announcing his investigation. “Police departments are on the front lines of that fight every day as they work to safeguard the people of our state. However, where there are allegations of potentially pervasive bias or discrimination, it can undermine the trust that is critical for public safety and our justice system. It is our responsibility to ensure that we establish a culture of accountability, professionalism, and zero tolerance for hateful or racist behavior, on or off duty.”
Former Antioch Police Chief Steven Ford announced his retirement last month and officially stepped down on Aug. 11 amid the scandal.
The spiraling revelations have impacted nearly half of the department’s sworn officers, and texts were exchanged between nearly 45 Antioch officers. As of July, 40 out of 90 officers were no longer working, the East Bay Times reports.
Dozens of cases that officers in the probe were involved in have since been dropped or derailed.
Robert Collins, whose step-son Angelo Quinto was killed by Antioch police in December 2020, told KQED that the arrests were an important step in rebuilding trust that has been lost between the community and its law enforcement officials.
“It’s amazing and shocking and sad that the lack of transparency and accountability has led to a police department that is so culturally deficient and problems that are so ingrained, so pervasive. But it’s good that there is some accountability and transparency coming out of the results of this federal indictment,” Collins told KQED. “It’s painful, but it’s a first step in improving the situation.”
Bella Quinto Collins, Quinto’s younger sister, was cautiously optimistic.
“This arrest is really good news,” she told KQED, “But at the same time, I don’t see this as necessarily the end of anything. It’s pretty clear that there’s still an ongoing issue within the culture of APD and there’s so much more work to be done to look into other officers that seem to be involved in various other issues and who are implicated in those text messages.”
Gigi Crowder, executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness in Contra Costa, called the arrests “one step in a long road,” and that a lot of young people and families she works with have grown fearful of their own law enforcement agency.
“This might send a message to officers who hold those beliefs but hadn’t been involved … that you can’t get away with being asked to protect and serve and carry these racial belief systems about a community.”
She added: “We get complaints from across the county. If they do deeper probing, they will find it’s not isolated to Pittsburg and Antioch.”
Mayor Thorpe has previously faced criticism for seeking accountability for officer misconduct. In his written statement on Thursday, the mayor wrote: “Today’s arrests are demonstrative of the issues that have plagued the Antioch Police Department for decades. Seeking to reform the Antioch Police Department is not anti-police, it is pro our residents, and pro officers that have served and continue to serve with honor.”
