Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe called for an independent audit on Saturday of the city’s police department’s hiring practices and internal affairs processes, the latest development in a scandal involving alleged racist text messages sent by police officers.
In a taped video, Thorpe said he was responding to an action taken Friday by Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Claire Maier. Thorpe said Maier released the names of 17 Antioch police officers “who allegedly were unafraid to use racist language.”
“There are no words to express my profound disappointment, given that one of the officers serves as president of the Antioch police union,” Thorpe said.
The mayor also called for an equity audit of the department to measure bias in enforcement efforts and to ultimately pursue measures that would help eliminate racist policies, practices and behaviors.
“We will hold anyone accountable that has allowed this culture to continue irrespective of how long you have been with this department, whether it’s a year or 20 years, and regardless of your rank,” Thorpe vowed.
The Antioch Police Department has been subjected to a probe by the FBI and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office into possible civil rights violations and other crimes.
Maier’s ruling was related to the probe.
The investigation is not the only scandal affecting the police department. Several officers have been placed on administrative leave due to policy violations.
Thorpe held a briefing March 30 to announce the actions against officers following an internal investigation.
In the March 30 briefing, Thorpe said the possible policy violations announced Thursday likely weren’t being investigated as crimes, but did not elaborate on the alleged violations or how many officers have been put on leave.
“We have every intention of respecting confidentiality in the process,” Thorpe said.
The next day, attorney Mike Rains criticized the mayor for holding the briefing. The attorney’s law office represents the Antioch Police Officers’ Association and its individual members in employment-related matters.
Rains said the fact Thorpe held a press conference about the officers going on leave meant he had no such intention of respecting the confidentiality of personnel matters in the department as specified in state law.
“The initiation of the investigation and the subjects of the investigation are not matters for public disclosure under existing law” and “the Mayor chose to compound the violation of state law by holding his own self-serving press conference,” Rains said.
Thorpe said the placing of “several” officers on leave would result in the department becoming shorthanded, but he said he was not sure about current police staffing levels.
At least eight of the city’s then-57 police officers were under investigation last year for what the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office said was possible “crimes of moral turpitude” involving Antioch and Pittsburg police officers. The Pittsburg Police Department has said on social media that the investigation “involves several local police officers, including three current Pittsburg police officers.”
Rains criticized Thorpe for his lack of knowledge of police staffing levels and questioned why Antioch Police Chief Steven Ford was not present at Thursday’s briefing.
“If the Mayor was truly concerned about the impact of this latest investigation on ‘staffing’ within the Police Department, who better than Chief Ford to discuss that issue?” Rains said.
“The ‘truth’ of the matter is that the Police Chief, not the Mayor, made the decision to place involved officers in this non-criminal investigation on administrative leave and asked for the immediate appointment of an ‘outside’ qualified investigator to conduct a thorough and objective investigation of the allegations,” he said.
“With his own evasion and doublespeak on full display, the mayor singlehandedly created far more ‘rumors’ about this investigation, and adverse impacts on the Police Department and community, than he allayed,” Rains said.
14 comments
Could there be a city more screwed up ?
woke
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Probably a matter of days before this hits national news.
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https://contracosta.news/2023/04/08/mayor-calls-for-audit-after-antioch-officers-sent-racists-text/
Scroll down to Headlines: then go thru news story URLs
Oakland and San Francisco are right up there too.
Looks like the mayor has his own problems. Typical person of his persuasion. Especially lately ever cop on patrol is putting their life on the line. They deal with the dredges of society. When no one wants to be a cop like people are not joining a woke military we are in deep you know what.
It’s not so much about hiring practices, it is about what the Police deal with day after day, night after night that they can never unsee. It does take a toll on your psyche and alter your beliefs.
Not just the hiring process! … the entire dept of policing! …. not rocket science here….
Mayor DUI is casting aspersions. Oh my.
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Thorpe is an administrative hack and political grandstander.
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According to various reports, the Antioch Police Chief wasnt even looped in by Thorpe about the proposed audit.
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An inclusive and effective leader would have at least discussed the planned audit with the Chief of Police before announcing such to the public.
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Thorpe, in my opinion, is creating divisiveness.. both internal and external to the Antioch government organization.
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Sounds like a typical BLM plant, designed to weaken the APD, by any and all means.
Equity audit? The hard left lives in Contra Costa, and is doing what they do.
Hate to break it to you…..but ANY employees who deal with the public Definitely talk amongst one another…..and yes, language is used. If you do not know this, you need help.
And BTW, this Mayor is grasping at straws. He is still upset about that DUI.
Call in the National Guard to patrol Antioch since there will be no police!
The mayor is a real POS!
First ever formal interaction with the Antioch PD at a community forum last month. I get off work and travel nearly an hour to participate, I walk inside and an officer comes at me briefly introduces themselves and immediately asks “you live here? , you work here?” Then I introduce myself. Didn’t think too much of it at first, but I processed it later and honestly it felt like I was at a traffic stop. I’ll never forget the ego and entitlement of that officer, a young man in fact. It may be a small or meaningless interaction, yet that interaction can go a long way. I’ll reserve my comments.
I pay my taxes, report crime and intervene when appropriate, moderately a con, and I work hard, do neighborhood clean-ups. I would hate to say it was because of my race and I won’t, yet sometime I wonder. Anyways, I said I’ll reserve my comments but just want to add more context. Strange world we continue to live in.
Since last Sunday was Easter: If 90% of people resisting arrest were dressed as the Easter Bunny, is there a chance law enforcement personnel might have something less than flattering to say about the Easter Bunny? Sure as they are living that reality.
Police Brutality? Unacceptable. Off-handed comments among peers? Not so bad.
For 2023 The City of Antioch will be exclusively using the new Dominion Breathalyzer “Democrat Grade” equipment. Personally tested by Paul Pelosi, and in fact he has invested heavily in shorting their stock. Hey wait a minute, that can’t be good……..
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