San Francisco Police Officer Sues Antioch Over Taser Incident

When we last checked in on our old friend and former Davis Police Chief Jim Hyde, his new department and city were facing a class action lawsuit over alleged racial profiling in Section 8 housing projects in Antioch.

Now the Antioch Police Department is back in the news, in one of those not-so-good ways as a San Francisco police inspector has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Antioch claiming that an Antioch police officer tased her during a confrontation in her home where she was attempting to evict a tenant.

According to SFPD Inspector Marvetia Lynn Richardson, a 41 year-old African-American who has served the SFPD for 14 years, "Antioch officers broke down her door last year, stunned her with a Taser and then took her to jail when she demanded to write "Tasered" on a citation for resisting arrest."

Apparently this incident is an outgrowth of efforts by Antioch police officers to enter homes without warrants to "harass and drive African American tenants out of federally subsidized housing."

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the suit filed in US District Court in San Francisco names among others the City of Antioch, Police Chief James Hyde, a police sargent, and three officers.

The city of course, denies any wrongdoing claiming that officers acted properly in investigating reports of violence against residents at the home.

"Richardson refused to sign a citation for resisting arrest and tried to write "Tasered" on it. An officer ripped the citation out of her hand and she was taken to jail, the suit said.

Judge Charles Treat of Contra Costa County Superior Court dismissed the resisting-arrest charge in June, saying the police entry into Richardson's house was illegal."

Dan Noyes from KGO in San Francisco, also is covering this story. Some may recall the stories he did on the Buzayan case in Davis.

Noyes has a seven-minute report that aired on Monday night.

You can watch the video of the news broadcast and read the transcript of the report.

There are a number of angles to this story. One of the things that Dan Noyes points out in his "iteam" blog is that the police report does not seem to match the audio of what happened during the incident.

"Antioch Police Officer Santiago Martinez was one of four officers who responded to the scene; he’s also the one who tased Richardson. There are some serious discrepancies in the report Martinez filed, compared to what’s on the audio recording."

Moreover:

"One defense lawyer writes the audio recording provides “a most disturbing account of officer fabricating and bolstering the facts of the incident to rise to a level of leading the witness, putting words into her mouth, and persuasion in effectuating the statements of the victims.”

This entire report seems uncannily familiar. At one point, Noyes reports that Chief Hyde refused to speak with him about this issue. One might recall when Noyes had an interview in Davis set up with Chief Hyde on the Buzayan case, he abruptly ended the interview and then according to emails had some rather choice words to say about Dan Noyes.

Still recent reports out of Antioch indicate that the City Council is pleased with Jim Hyde, they are pleased and credit him that crime is down, but the entire situation and escalation seems eerily familiar to the pattern that occurred in Davis. If anything it is escalated above anything that we saw in Davis. One thing that is clear, there are a number of staunch defenders of the chief in Antioch as there was in Davis and public opinion on him seems highly polarized.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

New York Times Covers Former Davis Police Chief

Even if the article in Sunday's New York Times were not about our old friend, former Davis Police Chief Jim Hyde it would be pretty fascinating.

That is because in a lot of ways there is tremendous change going on in American society, equivalent perhaps to the changes that occurred in the 20th century when large numbers of African-Americans fled from the south to northern cities which in turn spawned a flight of white city dwellars to the suburbs. Now the rising cost of urban housing is causing almost a reverse migration with many whites moving back to the cities and many African-Americans fleeing to the more affordable suburbs aided at times by programs like the Section 8 federal housing program.

Writes the New York Times:

"Under the Section 8 federal housing voucher program, thousands of poor, urban and often African-American residents have left hardscrabble neighborhoods in the nation’s largest cities and resettled in the suburbs.

Law enforcement experts and housing researchers argue that rising crime rates follow Section 8 recipients to their new homes, while other experts discount any direct link. But there is little doubt that cultural shock waves have followed the migration. Social and racial tensions between newcomers and their neighbors have increased, forcing suburban communities like Antioch to re-evaluate their civic identities along with their methods of dealing with the new residents."

In addition to these forces, the foreclosure crisis plays a role as well:

"The foreclosure crisis gnawing away at overbuilt suburbs has accelerated that migration, and the problems. Antioch is one of many suburbs in the midst of a full-blown mortgage meltdown that has seen property owners seeking out low-income renters to fill vacant homes."

Like I said, this would be an interesting story even without the presence of the formerly polarizing police chief of Davis in the story. The issue of "overbuilt suburbs" could probably keep us going for a week with talks about new waves in smart development and questions about what will happen to suburbs as towns struggle to redevelop their cores in hopes of cutting down on the need to consume gasoline in commutes.

For all the talk about racial reconciliation, it appears that the presence of African-Americans in a town like Antioch is just as explosive today as the notion of forced busing and integration was in the 1970s. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

On the front lines of these kinds of cultural struggles is often the face of law enforcement and it is here where our old friend rears his head once again and plants himself firmly in the conscience this time not just of Davis but apparently the entire nation.

The action filed as Antioch last month claims discrimination, intimidation, and illegal property searches. Police allegedly routinely questioned and harassed Section 8 residents about their housing status, writing letters to the county's housing authority recommending termination of subsidies.

According to the Times article:

"A December 2007 study of Antioch police records by Public Advocates, a law firm in San Francisco, counted 67 investigations of black households, compared with 59 of white families; black households, it found, are four times as likely to be searched based on noncriminal complaints and to be contacted by the police in the first place."

Like any profiling claim, the contentions are difficult to sustain even with such statistics--for all statistics can be a matter of coincidence as well as intent.

For their part, Chief Jim Hyde of the Antioch Police Department denies these claims.

But here is a very telling statement in the New York Times article:

"Chief Hyde also said that the local housing authority was not meeting its obligation to screen tenants properly, and that as his department focused on nuisance issues, the police had become a de facto enforcement arm of the federal government."

The question that immediately jumps to my mind is whether this an appropriate role for the police department to play. I understand the frustration that the police may have if the federal government is being negligent in its duties to enforce its own laws, but at the same time, if the police have gone beyond their own charge, they invite these sorts of complaints and law suits.

The Times article tells a number of stories about white residents complaining about the problems that the Section 8 housing has brought.

There is clear conflict within these stories on the one hand fear and on the other hand a recognition that there is a racial component to that fear and wondering if that is an appropriate response.

Laura Reynolds, 36, an emergency room nurse, said that she often came home to her Country Hills development tract after working a late-shift to find young black teenagers strolling through her neighborhood.

“I know it sounds horrible, but they’re scary. I’m sorry,” said Ms. Reynolds, who like her two friends said she was conflicted about her newfound fear of black youths. “Sometimes I question myself, and I think, Would I feel this way if they were Mexican or white?”

Is this is a legitimate fear and concern or is it being overblown by cultural and racial stereotypes? The problem that I fear is that some are playing on the legitimate fears of residents to their own political advantage. This is far from a new phenomena.

Brad Seligman is a lawyer with a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group based in San Francisco, the Impact Fund. They are one of the groups along with the ACLU, Public Advocates, and the NAACP that have accused the city's police department of racial profiling.

Mr. Seligman is quoted in the New York Times saying:

“Instead of driving while black, it’s renting while black.”

The New York Times talks about an African-American couple, Thomas and Karen Coleman, two of the plaintiffs.

In June 2007, a neighbor told the police that Mr. Coleman had threatened him. Officers from the police community action team visited the house and demanded to be allowed in.

“I cracked the door open, but they pushed me out of the way,” Ms. Coleman said.

The officers searched the house even though they did not have a warrant, said the Colemans, who are now part of the class-action suit against the department. The police questioned Mr. Coleman, a parolee at the time, about his living arrangement. He explained that he and his wife were separated but in the process of reconciling. The police accused the family of violating a Section 8 rule that only listed tenants can live in a subsidized home.

After the raid, officers made repeated visits to the Coleman home and to Mr. Coleman’s job at a movie theater. They also sent a letter to the county housing department recommending that the Colemans be removed from federal housing assistance, a recommendation the authority rejected.

“They kept harassing me until I was off parole,” Mr. Coleman said.

If the account of the Colemans is accurate, we see a number of problems with not only the police's conduct, but their role in this process.

First, even as a parolee, police cannot enter a person's residence without a warrant and without permission to enter.

Second, the police accused the family of violating a Section 8 rule but the family's situation was obviously more complicated than that. Frankly it is not the police's authority to enforce Section 8 rules which are federal. Moreover, by inserting themselves into the process they probably overstepped their boundaries.

Unexplained in this story is the fact that obviously there was no evidence that Mr. Coleman threatened anyone, otherwise they could have simply arrested him and revoked his parole.

Even if the authorities in Antioch technically acted appropriate here, a questionable contention at best, their insertion into this process is part of the problem. Instead of calming the situation down, they seem to be throwing fuel on the fire.

This is part of the problem I had with the Police Chief while he was in Davis. Two years ago, I obtained public records that show that Chief Hyde in response to citizen complaints about police conduct and in response to the HRC pressing the issue, instead of diffusing the situation, launched a PR campaign against the HRC from the police station. Emails show efforts by the police chief to drum up opposition to the HRC. Emails show derogatory statements made by the police chief to the HRC, its chair, and others in this community. While the Chief perhaps had every right to mobilize a counter response to the HRC's complaints, the method in which it was undertaken was polarizing and increased the heat and the tensions.

Moreover the police chief chose to finally take a new position in Antioch, a move he had been looking to make for some time, long before disagreements with the HRC arose. He chose that opportunity to throw the final fuel to the fire, further inciting tensions as he left the scene and forced those who stayed in Davis to clean up his mess including a number of lawsuits that the city currently faces from actions, which took place under his command.

These patterns seem to be reemerging in Antioch. Thus far, it seems that the police chief has the backing of the Antioch Mayor and City Council who also gave him a raise this month. The next question will be how much teeth this lawsuit has and whether the findings by the court, which figures to be a long and drawn out process, will vindicate or indict his current practices.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Former Davis Police Chief Finds New Department Subject of Federal Class Action Lawsuit

Police Allegedly Targeting African-American Tenants in Antioch

According to a lawsuit filed by Antioch Community Members and four Bay Area non-profit civil rights organizations, the City of Antioch and its police department are engaged in a concerted campaign of intimidation, harassment and discrimination against citizens, specifically African-American residents, who receive federally funded Section 8 housing rent assistance.

This is the apparent culmination of a long and controversial dispute in Antioch between longer term residents and those who have moved their families to Antioch in search of more affordable housing.

The city of Antioch rejected the lawsuit's claims, arguing that

"any objective review of our city's policing efforts will reveal that these efforts are focused exclusively on criminal and/or dangerous behavior."

However, according to Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund, one of the four groups to file the lawsuit on behalf of community members in Antioch:

“There is no question that the City and its police department are targeting Section 8 families, particularly African American recipients... The Police have a deliberate policy of coercion, intimidation and threats that target these Section 8 families and their landlords. The City’s goal is to force these families to move out of town.”

According to a release from the ACLU:

Plaintiff Alyce Payne moved to Antioch with her children to show her family they could “make it” outside of Oakland and so that her children could attend public schools there. But after her landlord received several letters from the police department, her tenancy was terminated. Ms. Payne relocated her family out of the City.

“Everyone should have the right to live in peace in the community they choose,” said Payne, who testified before the Antioch City Council about the discrimination she encountered from police officers. “We all want to live in a place where our families and our rights are respected.”

The suit alleges among other things that the Antioch Police Deparment:

- Established a special unit in 2006, the Community Action Team (CAT) for the purpose of targeting Section 8 residents, and the unit has directed the majority of its activities at African American families.

- Frequently searches the homes of African American families in the Section 8 program (or those erroneously believed to participate in the program) without their consent and without a warrant in an attempt to gather evidence to be used against Section 8 participants.

- Engages in a pattern of informing neighbors of African-American Section 8 households that the household is receiving Section 8 housing assistance and suggesting that neighbors file nuisance or disturbance reports against the Section 8 household.

- Threatens landlords with letters and visits by suggesting that landlords will be held liable for the activities of Section 8 tenants, and police officers actively encourage landlords to evict Section 8 tenants.

- Attempts to pressure the local Housing Authority in charge of the Section 8 program to terminate the voucher benefits of tenants whom the police department has targeted. Over 70% of these attempts have been directed at African Americans. A majority of these complaints were not sustained by the Housing Authority.

According to the complaint filed, in July of 2006, the City and the Antioch Police Department created a unit called the "Community Action Team" or "CAT" within the department. The CAT has disproportionately focused on Section 8 voucher participants, particularly on those residing in the more affluent neighborhoods of Antioch. "The city and APD [Antioch Police Department] have specifically targeted African-Americans they believe hold Section 8 vouchers."

During this time, former Davis Police Chief Jim Hyde had become Chief of Police for the City of Antioch. While these processes were underway, he was clearly in the position to facilitate the program, and in addition "he is responsible for the administration of APD and the training and supervision of its officers." Furthermore, "Defendant City, APD and Police Chief Hyde are, and at all times material to this complaint were, responsible for the employment, training, supervision, and discipline" of three named officers.

Former Davis Police Chief Jim Hyde remains the subject of another federal lawsuit, this one stemming from the 2005 arrest of then-16 year old Halema Buzayan stemming from a disputed hit-and-run accident in a Safeway parking lot and allegations of unlawful arrest, poor police procedures, and violations of Miranda Rights. A judge in April of 2006 dismissed the charges against Ms. Buzayan. The Buzayan federal lawsuit is moving slowly through the court process, having survived efforts from multiple defendants to drop the complaint.

When Police Chief Jim Hyde resigned from the city of Davis, the city was rife with turmoil and complaints against the police department. The Buzayan case was the most publicized and notable. However, in February of 2006, a large number of African-American students and faculty, came before the Davis City Council to complain about racial profiling. In May of the same year, several hundred mostly African-American students marched from the Memorial Union on campus to the Davis Police Department.

While it was the efforts of the Human Relations Commission and my wife Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald, in pushing for police oversight and reform, that earned widespread media attention and criticism by many suggesting they had gone too far in their demands, it was the anger of these separate groups that contributed to an overall sense that the police department under Jim Hyde's leadership was under siege.

In June, following the 2006 elections, Jim Hyde abruptly resigned from his position at the Davis Police Department to take the same position for more pay in the City of Antioch.

As he left, he threw more fuel on the fire, blaming my wife, Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald, and the HRC.

"In my 27 years of government service, 10 years of clinical psychology and 16 years of working with nonprofit organizations, the HRC is the most dysfunctional and incestuous group I have ever witnessed. I hope that (the) City Council will correct this community problem."

The Davis City Council would act quickly before newly elected Councilmember Lamar Heystek, a strong ally of the HRC and supporter of reform, could be seated. On June 26, 2006, the Davis City Council voted by a 4-1 margin to disband the Human Relations Commission.

To be very honest, this blog would likely not exist had it not been for the events in the Spring of 2006 and the actions by Chief Jim Hyde that led the HRC being disbanded.

Even two years later on the campaign trail, I ran into a number of individuals who still hold anger for the fact that Chief Jim Hyde was perceived to have been run off by Cecilia and the HRC.

And yet at the same time, it seems to me that Chief Jim Hyde was a huge precipitator of both the underlying problems in the Davis Police Department as well as an instigator to many of the tensions that arose in the Spring of 2006. When he left, overnight, tension plummeted. Even more than the hiring of a police ombudsman, the hiring of Chief Landy Black in the spring of 2007 served to cut down on the public complaints. I am not suggesting that things are perfect, I still think things could be better, but we have also not had public marches in the streets the last two years. We have not had hundreds of young African-American students coming into city council complaining about police tactics. In my dealings with Chief Black, he has always been willing to listen and has been completely professional, even on those occasions when we have disagreed.

As Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald said to Davis Enterprise reporter Claire St. John during her run for City Council in a Davis Enterprise article:

"I think we all learned from that process," she said. "How communications, situations, can be improved. It's those experiences that make us better people."

Escamilla-Greenwald said the things that came of that time have improved the city. The City Council, although it rejected an independent police oversight commission, did appoint a police advisory commission and hired an ombudsman. The new police chief, Landy Black, is a good fit for the city, Escamilla-Greenwald said.

"We have a new chief of police who is doing a great job as far as I've seen," she said. "I've met with him, I did a ride-along with the police, that was an eye-opener. People are happy, from what I hear. There's now a process in place."

While the situation in Antioch may be somewhat different from that in Davis, the basic scenario seems to follow a similar pattern. The police are alleged to take an overly broad approach to law enforcement. It is unclear the extent to which Section 8 Voucher recipients are being perceived to be causing problems or if they are actually causing those problems. But irrespective of that point, the response by the police in Antioch seems to be to allegedly harass all African-Americans, regardless of their Section 8 status. This is the heart of the racial-profiling allegation.

What we see then is a pattern of behavior not only in terms of police profiling, or perceptions thereof, but in terms of the handling of the matter.

Throughout the Buzayan case, a more honest and forthright approach really could have avoided many of the lawsuits and legal remedies that ultimately resulted.

The acrimony between the police and the HRC did not necessarily have to result from events.

As Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald wrote in 2006 in response to Jim Hyde's parting words:

"After many months of hearing from members of the public, last summer we met with the police chief over concerns about the growing number of complaints about police misconduct. These meetings and interactions quickly turned adversarial as the police chief became defensive. Instead of engaging in public dialogue over these very serious issues, Chief Hyde retreated--he cut off communications with the HRC, he pulled his liaisons to the commission, and began a concerted public campaign to discredit the efforts of the HRC to reach common ground on reforms that could be done within the department."

Furthermore:

"The Human Relations Commission, after hearing repeated accounts from credible citizens in our community, recommended the formation of a Citizen's Review Board of the police department. The Police Chief reacted negatively and with attacks upon the HRC as well myself and members of the community for even suggesting such a body. Once again, Chief Hyde reacted defensively and inappropriately instead of working with the community to resolve these problems."

The situation could have been diffused, perhaps by both sides. The City Council could have approached this by simply acknowledging a potential problem but suggesting that the civilian oversight board would be problematic in Davis. Instead the city endured attacks and allegations and heated rhetoric. No doubt everyone involved could have handled things better.

But we what see now is a pattern. That pattern has repeated itself in Antioch, far away from Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald, the HRC or even the Vanguard.

At the same time, the response from the Antioch City Council is eerily similar to that in Davis.

Former Councilmember Ted Puntillo at the time of Hyde resignation called Hyde

"a very talented and probably one of the best chiefs that we could ever hope to have."

On Wednesday, the Contra Costa Times reports similar comments from the Mayor of Antioch as well as City Councilmembers.

On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council approved a nearly $17,000 per year raise for the Police Chief.

Antioch Mayor Donald Freitas:

"The salary increase has more to do with salary compaction but it also reflects an endorsement of Chief Hyde and the outstanding job he's doing. He has performed exemplary in the last two years, and has moved the department into the 21st century with the use of new technology. He's well-respected by the men and women under his command, as well as the community."

Councilmember Arne Simonsen:

"I'm sure there are other cities that would like a police chief like Jim Hyde... but I think the majority of people in Antioch would like him to stay."

I think the Davis Police Department is far better without Chief Jim Hyde here. Much work remains to be done, but so far, Landy Black's tenure as Police Chief has gone off without major incident. The city has been relatively calm since the departure of Jim Hyde. That and subsequent law suits in Antioch simply cannot be mere coincidence.

The Vanguard will continue to monitor the situation in Antioch and in the coming weeks, we will be speaking with some of the attorneys involved in the lawsuit down there and also possibly updating the public on the ongoing Buzayan Federal Lawsuit that is currently working its way through the Federal Court in Sacramento.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting