ANTIOCH — As a grand jury continues to weigh potential criminal charges against at least eight Antioch police officers, an additional eight cops have been placed on leave for allegedly sending offensive text messages to each other, this news organization has learned.
The officers, who have not been publicly named, were placed on leave this week for violating department policies by texting or receiving explicitly racist and homophobic messages, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The revelations are not criminal in nature but surfaced during the FBI's investigation of other Antioch police officers suspected of a range of alleged crimes.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe announced the personnel changes at a news conference Thursday morning, without specifying the number of officers or why they were placed on leave. Thorpe said, though, that there was ample evidence of a "cultural and systemic problem" within the Antioch Police Department and said previous city and department leaders had "failed to ask tough questions" to root it out.
"To say that I am outraged is an understatement…but I'm also disappointed," Thorpe said.
The news conference was ostensibly held to announce that the police department is even more short staffed now, but Thorpe took aim at Antioch police Chief Steven Ford throughout it. He told reporters he learned of the scandal not through Ford but other city staff, and that he would call a special City Council meeting to demand answers from the chief in public if he didn't hear from him soon.
Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, Ford declined to comment, citing the "sensitive" personnel matter at play. Behind the scenes, Ford and Thorpe have found themselves at odds politically in recent months, as the city continues to grapple with police staffing levels, as well as the fallout from the FBI investigation.
The controversy came to a head in February, after officers failed to show in time to catch a burglary in progress at a local restaurant and brewery.
The eight officers on leave as part of the FBI probe represent 10 percent of the police force, APD has said. Losing another eight officers from patrol complicates the department's staffing woes and could further cripple APD's ability to respond to calls. As of earlier this month, Antioch had 43 patrol officers, including those on leave for medical issues and the ones out as part of the FBI investigation.
"It seems like we're back to ground zero," said Dwayne Gilliland, who waited for hours for police to respond to a robbery in February at the Hillcrest Restaurant and Taphouse, a restaurant he runs. "I can't really say I'm angry. I'm just highly disappointed in what's going on. We're trying to make this city better, and there's constantly things knocking us back. Situations like this are not helping at all."
As this scandal moves into the public foray, the potential that several other officers will be indicted on criminal charges looms.
More than a dozen current and former Antioch and Pittsburg officers, including at least eight from Antioch, are under investigation for crimes including potential civil rights violations, involving police violence and dog bites, as well as alleged schemes to obtain bump pay through college degree fraud, accepting bribes to make traffic tickets go away, eliciting false confessions, and drug use and sales.
One former Pittsburg officer has already been charged in Contra Costa Superior Court with illegally possessing and transporting firearms, but authorities say that case is just the tip of the iceberg. A grand jury, convened last year, has called multiple East Contra Costa law enforcement officers, as well as people who were injured by Antioch police, multiple law enforcement sources have told this news organization.
In early 2022, the FBI served search warrants at a number of Antioch officers' homes and seized their cellphones. After searching through the phones, they discovered more evidence of potential crimes, as well as text messages with racist and homophobic remarks, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
That history has led some to question whether it's time to take the policing of the city out of local hands.
"That's something that has been a subject of conversation in my office," said Oakland-based civil rights attorney Ben Nisenbaum, who represents the family of Angelo Quinto, an Antioch resident who died at the hands of Antioch police officers on Dec. 23, 2020.
"Look, if you can't expect fair policing, how can you have a functioning police department," Nisenbaum said. "People of (Antioch) deserve fair policing. They deserve to be seen as a people, and you can't have that or a functioning department when it has the clear appearance that the officers are racist and that there's a large group of them and that it's OK."
The Contra Costa County District Attorney declined to file charges against officers involved in restraining Quinto, but the case will be reviewed by Attorney General Rob Bonta's office, officials said Wednesday.
The fallout has led to calls for federal oversight, like occurred in Oakland in the wake of the so-called Riders scandal, where officers were implicated in on-duty violent crimes and other alleged misconduct.
"We're not talking a bad apple," Bay Area civil rights attorney Adante Pointer said of Antioch's police force. "We're talking batches of bad apples. . . . I think we need to look at a regional approach, because we know officers transfer from one department to another around the area and take that culture with them."
Then there's the issue of spillover into the criminal justice system. Already, federal and state prosecutors have dismissed dozens of serious criminal charges that hinged on the word of the officers under criminal investigation. Now, a second round of dismissals seems likely.
Many of the racist texts in question were reportedly directed at suspects in active criminal prosecutions, raising the possibility that prosecutors will be forced to disclose their content to defense attorneys. That would open the door to defense attorneys requesting dismissals or overturned convictions under the new state Racial Justice Act, which is intended to weed out systemic racism from the justice system. The law requires attorneys to demonstrate their clients suffered from disparate or prejudicial treatment based on their race.
"This is what happens when you let a police department slide and have no discipline," Nisenbaum said. "And maybe federal oversight is needed to end that."
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