Antioch Police Department’s Decades of Terror: A Community’s Road to Accountability and Healing

In the aftermath of the Antioch Police Department’s “racist text scandal” – in which texts were released that revealed decades of police officers using derogatory, homophobic and sexually explicit language, and bragging about falsifying evidence and beating up suspects – community members are left picking up the pieces, facing hard truths, and in need of healing. 

James Herard, executive director of Lift Up Contra Costa, joins Angela Chavez, communications director at Courage California, to discuss the community’s response and continued fall out since news broke about the Police Dept.’s “racists text scandal,” and what the rest of the nation can learn as Antioch residents question if trust can be rebuilt. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Angela: on Friday, April 28th, I joined James at a community meeting in Antioch. By this time, news about the racist police text scandal was already in the national spotlight. The community was fractured and emotions were high. Residents were caught in the middle of a media circus that was highly focused on the police department and the city council, but not so much on the community members themselves who continue to fight to be heard and included in the discussions about the future of public safety and Antioch.

So with that, I'd like to welcome James Herard, executive director of Lift Up Contra Costa. Thank you for joining me today, James.

[00:00:37] James: You, Angela, it's a pleasure.

[00:00:39] Angela: So, as I mentioned, I first entered this conversation with you in local community leaders in late April, can you tell me about when you first learned of the racist police texts? What happened? When was it and what was the immediate response like on the ground?

[00:00:56] James: Great question. I first learned about these text messages on [00:01:00] April 13th, the day that it broke. Well, actually, I should say, I learned about the day before on April 12th when Police Chief Ford actually issued a letter acknowledging his disdain and displeasure with some of the actions or some of the messages that were displayed from his officers in his department. This actually began a year ago in the spring of 2022 when there was an investigation for a completely different matter where individuals who were arrested, detained by these officers had made claims of that their civil rights had been violated by these officers during their detainment and arrest.

There was a subsequent release from the court asking to do a separate investigation. District Attorney Diana Beck. Then joint collaboration with the f b I launched an internal investigation to see if there was any credence to these claims that these individuals had made. This had been a long yearlong investigation that's been conducted, and we didn't know about the details up until April 13th, [00:02:00] 2023 when the news broke.

You can imagine community members felt outraged. This has been a long standing sentiment in the community that these police officers and this police department had been racially targeting them for decades. They had been very little or few documentation of these instances, and when complaints were filed, they weren't filed properly and that documentation no longer exists.

What we've seen in this last few months since the breaking of this news, these community members have been. Unbelievably harmed, unbelievably targeted and hurt by this police department and intentional by these police officers and their actions towards them. The community wants justice and what that looks like has a myriad of views of what it can actually represent, but for those who are deeply impacted, those who were hurt and harmed by this police department.

Justice needs to come in the form of decertification termination and ultimately reducing the power and authority [00:03:00] in this police department so that its interactions with the community can reflect those that we trust and believe in our democratic system.

[00:03:07] Angela: So for those who aren't familiar with the Antioch Police Tech scandal, what actually happened? How was trust broken? What did these texts look like and how many police were involved?

[00:03:21] James: Well first I think we need to take a look at the sheer scope of this incident. There are 45 individuals named in these text message scandals and of the 45, only 24 have been named publicly. There's an outcry from the community to release all the names, so we know that all the individuals that are responsible are going to be held accountable.

When the text message scandal broke the details in these text messages are gruesome and I, I caution everyone who chooses to. Take it upon themselves to read or review them themselves to proceed with caution because they are graphic in nature and they are hurtful and they're intended to be hurtful.

these [00:04:00] officers use language in the forms of the N word, the F word disparaging remarks for B, LGBTQ members of the community referring to African-Americans as gorillas or other primates. And referring to the sheer scope of their abuse as minimal compared to other races that they are currently targeting and assaulting as well.

These messages are hurtful because it shows that there is direct collusion and intention to hide and deliberately to abuse black and brown members of the community of Antioch. This message Scandal reaches of the highest departments of the police department as well as the district attorney's office.

There are several senior level police officers in the police department that are cited in these messages as either cheering on these actions by these police officers, asking them to hide or conceal their messages and to ensure that they're being kept private and that their [00:05:00] collusion is intended to suppress and oppress these community members simply by the biases of their skin color and their racial demographic.

This department has a huge responsibility in taking accountability for the hurt that they have caused, the damage and impact that they have implemented on these community members and this community as a whole, and the fracturing of public trust that not all people are protected under their policing in the city of any.

[00:05:26] Angela: So to be clear, there was racial profiling happening.

[00:05:30] James: That is

[00:05:30] Angela: We have 45 officers out of about how many officers are in Antioch to begin with,

[00:05:37] James: There are currently on staff, 96 officers on the payroll

[00:05:41] Angela: and what happened to those 45 that were found as part of that scandal.

[00:05:47] James: 16 of them were placed on administrative leave. One of them has been terminated since the wake of this text message scandal, and the others remain on active duty. The concern here is that if so many officers were involved and so [00:06:00] many were disciplined in a single swoop how could the City of Antioch police Department provide adequate and security for the entire city

[00:06:07] Angela: About how long has this been going on? Sorry to interrupt. I'm just curious, how long has this been going on?

[00:06:12] James: Are you referring to the suspensions or

[00:06:14] Angela: police, the, the texts, the history of the texts, I suppose.

[00:06:19] James: so in the search procedure from Diana back then and the FBI's joint investigation, the text messages only go back to 2020, but it's been made known that There are several other cell phones that are in the custody of the F B I and Diana back then district Attorney's office that have not been revealed yet.

We know there are other messages and other instances where there could be other crimes committed, but in this current time, the only messages that were revealed were subsequent to the case that have made relevant to the officers that were involved in that early arrest in the spring of 2022.

[00:06:50] Angela: So I, as I mentioned, I briefly went to Antioch at the end of April, and this was my first time in that community and I didn't know what to expect of Antioch, [00:07:00] especially it being in the, in the bay ish part of California. So, you know, from my perspective, I was like, oh, it's gonna be like a big ish city. Can you just give me a little bit, like, what do you see when you walk out the door?

What is this community like? The, the city of Antioch?

[00:07:17] James: So, When you come into Antioch first there's a huge police presence. There's not a moment in time that I drive on the highway leading into the city or getting off into the city where I am not seen or have seen several officers surveilling or, or drive around or are just present in the community as heavily as you see in other cities in the Bay Area.

Antioch for African-Americans particularly is a city that feels oppressed. People in the community don't feel safe going to the grocery stores and supermarkets. People in the community don't feel safe in attending local events at Parks and regions. People in the city don't feel safe when there ever is police present either in the neighborhood or suspected to be coming to the [00:08:00] neighborhood.

There's always a sense of fear when police officers are questioned or, or, or questioning to come to a community or a community event. There's always a sense of unease when their presence is actually at a house party or a birthday celebration. And there's always a sense of unknowing how the situation will unfold at the end of the interactions with those police officers.

The language and behavior of these police officers are aggressive, are intimidating, and understandably that, you know, the police office department is designed to protect and create sense of safety in the community. But these members don't feel safe. Antioch residents, since the wake of this text message scandal, do not feel safe.

I am bombarded as well as many other local elected officials and other Community leaders are bombarded with messages and communications from community members notifying us that police have been in their neighborhoods. The police have been surveilling their movements. The police have been [00:09:00] attending functions where there weren't any disturbances or any cause for them to be there.

And that they do not feel safe when those police officers are in their spaces.

[00:09:09] Angela: Even before the police text scandal broke, there was already that fear and already that feeling in the community. And it's a fairly small community. And I also wanna note that Antioch is a former sundown city. So the community there, there is a history, there is a divide. And when you say the community members don't feel safe when the police are around.

It's a specific group of community members. It's black, it's brown. They're the ones who don't feel safe, and now we know for good reason. It wasn't just this make believe, like I just don't feel safe around cops for no good reason. No cops have been targeting the black and brown communities in Antioch, and now it is just out there on paper.

The paper trail exists.

[00:09:58] James: That's right. And most [00:10:00] recent research has proven that the majority of stops or interactions with police officers in black and brown communities are through traffic stops. And in these traffic stops, black and brown residents are. Disproportionately targeted for stops and disproportionately ticketed, detained, arrested, and the vehicles towed at the end of the interaction with police officers.

It's even been mentioned in those text message scandals that there's a police officer citing saying, I'm just gonna stop all the black people and I don't care if they did anything wrong. I'm gonna give 'em a ticket anyway. this is a gross abuse of authority, a gross abuse of power simply to oppress one community on the sheer basis, that if they're black and they're driving, I'm gonna stop them cuz they have to be doing something wrong without any evidence or reason of a crime or intention of committing a crime.

That these residents are always under suppression. Our community members and community organizers are living testimonies for all these interactions. Specifically around the Antioch Police Department. [00:11:00] And what I mean by that is that when they venture out into other cities, nearby cities and the cities of Brentwood or the cities of Pittsburgh, it's not to say that that element of oppression doesn't exist, but it is fewer interacted with those residents when they travel to do grocery shopping.

As I mentioned early before. Residents in the community don't feel safe to even shop for goods and services because they fear that if they're on the roads too long or if they're traveling down the street where the police presence is heavy, that the likelihood of them being stopped or pulled over is too much or too great of a fear to actually want to commit to what they're willing to travel far distances to have fewer interactions with these police officers and this department.

[00:11:42] Angela: Yeah. And that's understandable. I mean, Essentially it's half the police department and for decades. And I just wanna note that it's, it didn't occur under this current police chief. It was the one that was formally there. The news just broke under this current police chief. So for, I believe it was a couple decades

[00:11:59] James: That's[00:12:00] 

[00:12:00] Angela: this had been going on.

[00:12:01] James: That is correct. And this has been going on for decades, and it's been clear documentation from the residents who have filed complaints against this police department over the years citing these exact statements that I'm making here today. Police Chief Ford is, is the new police chief here in Antioch.

 he had taken on this responsibility because it is his duty as the chief of police, but he was not the police chief when all these accusations and charges were being made. It's also credible to note that this department, through its many failures and deficiencies, had not conducted reviews or evaluations of any of their police officers over the last seven years.

This is something that's a common practice in every city and every police department across the country, that the performance and evaluation and critique of these police officers internally should have occurred on an annual rolling basis. This department failed to do those checks, and because it failed to do those checks, it could not adequately or sufficiently address these issues [00:13:00] as they arose.

This is a huge systemic issue. We now understand that the Internal Affairs Department was not adequately or efficiently working in its ability to hold these law officers accountable. In their duties as police officers when complaints were filed, when arrests were made, and even when their weapons were discharged.

This department has a huge, huge problem, and it's our job as a responsibility as community members and organizations to highlight and point these deficiencies out and hold these individuals and departments accountable as much as we absolutely can before we can actually start to see real change happen here in the sea of any.

[00:13:39] Angela: So speaking of accountability, we see issues with police departments happening everywhere globally. Like right now in France, there is a lot of protests going on because a police officer murdered. A young person there in Paris and there are protests in the street happening like right now as we speak.

And there's a lot of [00:14:00] fractures happening all globally around policing. I know here I'm in Sacramento and there was just an audit revealed that there was mul has been multiple civil rights violations. And that just came out, I wanna say like less than a week ago. So we know this is happening globally, nationally, This has seen the light of day in the news, but at the same time, policing is a very local story. We know politics is local, but police departments are very local. So while we have this global issue, it's up to the communities to really tackle them head on. So what exactly have the community members in Antioch.

Requested of the city council and the police department, what is it gonna take to rebuild the trust and for the community as a whole to feel safe again?

[00:14:53] James: That's a great question, and as it relates to trust, I, I, I don't think trust is something that can be easily garnered or gained [00:15:00] from this city in this department, being that these residents have been citing complaints for over a decade and decades before it. And you're right to mention that this city is a former sundown city.

there are tunnels under this city where African Americans needed to travel once the sun set to be able to move around the city without detection or harm or intentional harm to be placed upon them. As we start to reimagine what public safety looks like, police departments across the state, across the nation, across the world need a complete overhaul.

And what I mean by that is that accountability needs to look different for people who have ultimate authority in an individual setting, in a private moment where only things that are captured are either through camera and audio or under the cloak of darkness, because they lack the technology or the information to be able to record interactions accurately. The city has conducted its own internal audit and is subject to hopefully conclude that audit within a year. [00:16:00] There is the community members along with champion elected officials like Tamisha Torres Walker and Monica Wilson, who have fought to gain a police oversight commission at the City of Antioch just over a year ago.

But the city has done very little to staff these roles for this commission, give it authority and responsibilities to oversee what it truly means to oversee the police office department. And also to give it any resources that would give it power to either provide subpoenas or even recommendations for financial or economic shifts based on the needs of this police department and the needs of this community.

What the people in the community really, really want is they want a government that not only hears the complaints, but takes immediate action in correcting it. And they want a police department that they can have confidence and trust in knowing if they do call and they are on the scene, that they're not gonna be subject or targeted as individuals of interest or, or persecuted as [00:17:00] criminals just by the color of their skin, the nature of their orientation or their sexual orientation.

These text messages highlighted the gross abuse of these officers on all these communities, right? they subsequently use the F word when referring to LGBTQ members of the community. They use. Sexualized, hateful, targeted language when referring to cisgender protestors. They have used derogatory and hateful speech when referring to black and brown people in those messages and reducing them to be subhuman while they're conducting and doing their job.

The failures of this police department is systemic. It goes all the way from the 9 1 1 operators who are taking the inbound calls and then directing officers with accurate information onto the scene all the way to the police chief and accountability in the internal affairs department to make sure that if, when incidences do occur, that they're addressed appropriately and transparently so that there is accurate and equal and fair documentation of [00:18:00] these interactions in that the community has access this information to create its own decision determination.

Trust in this city is gonna take some time. Trust in this city is gonna be hard to gain because there have been so many individuals, from elected officials to former police chiefs, to former das and prosecutors who have used these tactics and used this information from these police officers to not just obtain arrests, but secure prosecutions and incarceration of individuals in homes.

We are constantly being communicated with from the community members of individuals who have been arrested for eight, 10 years ago and saying, these officers were there and they were the arresting officers. And they feel that in these moments that their loved ones are incarcerated unjustly because of these text messages and because of the officers who were involved and what can they do to bring their loved ones home 

[00:18:49] Angela: I wanna stop you right there. So it sounds like there's a lot of fallout that has happened and it's not just we have these racist police officers, let's get 'em off the force. It's not [00:19:00] as simple as that. this is a huge blow to the community in multiple different ways and it's gonna affect a lot of past cases.

There's a lot of things that now have to happen and the community is not only, you know, navigating this, but also trying to heal from it. And it is going to be a process. I know some of the headlines I saw, you know, recently was, you know the, well, the Antioch Police Department is currently under investigation from the District Attorney's Office, the F B I, The State attorney general's office, and two members of Congress have asked the US Department of Justice to open its own investigation. Every day I'm seeing new Antioch Police Department body camera, video come out. I am seeing new accusations coming out almost daily, and we know that over the next couple years, the Public Defender's office will be reviewing all the cases that involve any of the [00:20:00] Antioch Police departments that were linked to these racist tech scandals.

And because of that, the Contra Costa County Police Defender's Office is hiring more staff to help review those thousands upon thousands of cases. And we already know that some cases are leading to unprecedented mass dismissals in criminal court, and it's costing a lot of money. The District attorney and public defender's offices have been approved for funding to handle these cases, and I believe it was 2.2 million a year.

So, They're literally writing a check for 2.2 million a year to solve this problem, and previous convictions are being overturned. It's a mess.

[00:20:45] James: That's correct. It's, it's a huge issue. There have been several positions open, not just at the public defender's office, but also in the DA's office to overlook, to see if there were any other misuse or miscarriage of justice in these cases [00:21:00] where these officers in these departments were were the arresting officers or were the department that's sending these individual cases to the Contra Costa District Attorney's office. It's a huge problem because we're now spending taxpayer dollars to go back and look back to see if a system that was designed to keep us safe was actually doing its job. And if it wasn't, who were the individuals that were abusing their authority, and if they did abuse that authority to what scale and to what degree?

The biggest problem here, and I, and I understand the financial and economic impacts that these places on the county and now in the city, but the biggest impact here are the lives that are hurt and damaged forever. In this moment that cannot be recouped or taken back or even remotely see what justice can look like for the individuals who may be incarcerated in this time, who have been falsely accused, of which we have been hearing cases of where testimonies have been altered by, by eyewitness statements because of pressure from these police officers in this police department.[00:22:00] 

We've seen evidence fraudulently made to secure arrest and incarcerate and, and seek prosecution and incarcerate individuals. The lives that were harmed and forever damaged by these actions of this police department is is unquestionable an insurmountable amount of pain that happens to these people.

I think what we need to do as a community-based organization, as well as my other leaders and colleagues in this space, is that there needs to be a form of retribution and restitution for the lives that were harmed and impacted over the years by this police department. I don't know what that looks like at this moment as we're still currently trying to unravel all the stories and all the information that we're collecting from community members and understanding how do we weave and connect these back.

To these police departments with accurate documentation to show that the systemic issue doesn't just exist in one or two officers. It exists in the entire criminal justice system. And [00:23:00] what we're seeing from these text messages as well, that the other police departments were also implicated. In these messages and other officers from other police departments and other federal agencies were implicated in these text messages, and even to some degree, healthcare professionals at local hospitals that were supposed to treat and care for individuals, worked alongside with officers to suppress injuries or failed to document injuries.

Fa providing false or fraudulent information on the condition and status of an individual. Who had been physically assaulted by police officers in collusion to suppress the needs of the actual individual that deserved a fair healthcare evaluation as well as a fair due process and as well as a fair moment to just exist in the city of Antioch.

It's a shame that we've come to this point, and it's a shame that it took text messages to illuminate these deficiencies and systemic failures. When we know they tr they already exist. It's just. [00:24:00] When these moments occur there, the cameras are present and people tend to turn up in an uproar for them. But we know as black and brown people in the community, we know as oppressed citizens in this country and residents in this country that these problems exist.

And it's a shame that our government doesn't do more to prevent situations like this from occurring. And to look back and do a self internal introspection onto what could have possibly been. Harm that's been committed over the years that there's been swept on the rug by previous elected official bodies or police chiefs and district attorney.

Is.

[00:24:35] Angela: Right. And I want to just use the word while you're talking. I'm feeling like your community was terrorized. It was terrorized and from multiple directions and coming back from that, I can't imagine what that's gonna be like for your community. and knowing that there's a lot of other communities that are also facing very similar challenges.

What advice would you give to somebody? [00:25:00] What do you want people to understand? Take away from what's happening in Antioch.

[00:25:05] James: I want the public to understand that this isn't new, right? We know that this is not something that's unique or special to Antioch. We know that this happens to every person of color, every minority community across this country in local police departments, and we know that this is going to take time before it gets better. With all the audits and investigations that are currently happening, we know that it's gonna take at a minimum of two years before we even see recommendations for changes. And then years later for those recommendations to be implemented and then for those implementations to then result into systematic or behavioral changes.

time is not on our side on this case. Right. I don't think there's any immediate restitution or justice that's gonna be had. But we need to stay vigilant. We need to stay aware. We need to stay in [00:26:00] communication. We need to stay in community so that we are constantly keeping this at the forefront of our minds, that we don't turn our gaze to the next big flashy issue that pops up on the media, from the media.

Because once we do that, then the opposing side, which we always hold as government accountable, is gonna take their foot off the gas pedal. Probably slow roll it a little bit. Probably not do as a deep dive investigation as they probably should have been doing because what we've seen is that government has been failing us for so long that we need to hold them accountable, and the only way we do that is staying in the fight until justice is won.

[00:26:40] Angela: So with that, I have one final question. How can people help either help the community in Antioch or help their own community who is going through something similar? What would you say to that one person? What can they do? Um,

[00:26:54] James: To that one person, I would say the way you can help is by joining your local [00:27:00] organizations that are currently working on legislation to help create more transparency within police departments. Organizations that are fighting to release individuals from incarceration due to police or prosecution misconduct.

And we need individuals to stay in the fight if, if you're financially able to contribute to those organizations that are doing those fights, the resources needed for those organizations to exist are desperate and dire. And our dollars are few and far between. The issue that I would urge individuals who are seeking to want to get involved.

Contact your local district attorney's office, contact your local public defender's office. Ask them what is happening with these cases, applying the pressure and trying to gain understanding and information of where they are in their development. You may get the brush off with, this is an, this is an ongoing investigation and we can't release information, but there is information that they can give you.

Right. And for those who are in Antioch, in Contra Costa County, reach out to the Public Defender's office [00:28:00] and Ellen McDonald, who is the lead. The lead attorney on this case with the public defender's office and constantly remind them that these lives that were hurt, these lives that were lost, these lives that are currently incarcerated are too important to worry about budgetary constraints and that we need a public defender's office that are going to do their job and not.

Force individuals to take plea deals when they know that these individuals are innocent, that these individuals who are in these jail cells can come home and we should be working tirelessly day and night to bring them home. And that these individuals in these police departments and these individual police officers need to be brought to justice, and justice needs to happen now. you can contribute to our organization. Lift Up Contra Costa at www.liftupcoco.org, or you can contribute to organizations like the Safe Return Project, which is [00:29:00] srp.org. 

[00:29:00] Angela: Well, thank you so much, James for joining me today. And as a reminder to you all, you can connect with Courage California using courage ca or emailing us@infocouragecalifornia.org. And we're also happy to help you find resources there cuz we are in the fight along with James. 

[00:29:21] James: Thank you.

so much. 

[00:29:22] Angela: Thank you.