It’s been a number of years since the George Floyd protests in 2020 and the shooting of Sean Monterrosa, which has been in the news a lot. Sean was not from Vallejo, but he was protesting the police brutality in Vallejo and became the next victim of a fatal officer-involved shooting of an unarmed person as a result. That was the last death of its kind in Vallejo to date. We had a new police chief, Shawny Williams, whom progressives mostly admired as he attempted to reform the Vallejo Police Department (VPD) after that, but he resigned eventually in what many of us believe was a result of his being chased out of town by the Vallejo Police Union (VPOA) with numerous racist threats (Shawny Williams is African-American).

In June 2023 there was the next officer-involved shooting of an unarmed person that made the news. Here is the link to the Vallejo Sun article. I’m pleased with the VPD decision.

So many asked me why I was SO UPSET that this Vallejo police officer fired shots at this alleged thief after I attended the VPD Town Hall at 4pm on a weekday. The timing of the town hall was suspect, but in fairness to VPD, they said all the evidence and investigation into the officer’s conduct was preliminary.

I asked myself “Was the cop in danger?” There were at least 5 unarmed AFTER-HOURS thieves in a closed commercial property. The thieves of course were NOT from Vallejo, but the property was closed up and there probably wasn’t even any cash in there. So the only thief who remained (the others jumped the fences to get away) drove forward since there was no other direction he could go. As a result, he was shot IN THE FACE by an officer who ran over to him. Is that the best practice for police officers? I thought shooting at fleeing unarmed thieves was not a reason to start gunfire, as is the case in every other country where guns are not fetishized. The car barely touched the cop on its way out of the parking space (you can watch the video), as clearly evidenced by the fact that the police officer continued to shoot directly toward the face of the UNARMED young man until his face was hit. No attempts were made at the tires of the car based on the ballistics, but there were a number of bullet holes in the car, which could have also caused it to explode. The alleged thief had surgery and survived, but a few inches over and he’d be dead for what? Stealing CANDY BARS?

At the VPD Town Hall on the shooting, we were told that the burglary of an EMPTY store with no employees present and with NO weapons except the crowbar used to enter the EMPTY store was considered a “Priority 1,” it made me wonder what priority a kidnapping, rape, or murder would have been. Would it have taken precedence over a nonviolent empty store being robbed in a city of 126,000? I’m not saying robbery is okay, but it’s NOT worth killing someone over!

Now VPD has wisely banned shooting at vehicles altogether, which would have made sense in this case also. It’s not like the license plate of the vehicle that attempted to escape wasn’t immediately discernable with the body cam and dashcam. Let’s hope that bit by bit common sense will prevail and guns will only be pulled out of police holsters when actual threats of violence toward PEOPLE are happening.