Vallejo police sued over shooting death
Lawsuit calls for court monitoring of department
The attorney representing the family of Willie McCoy, a Vallejo man shot and killed by police in February, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday calling for a courtappointed monitor to oversee the city’s Police Department.
Civil rights lawyer John Burris filed the complaint, which echoes legal action he and others took in the early aughts against the Oakland Police Department, when 119 plaintiffs sued the city and its Police Department in the historic Oakland Riders case. A federal court appointed monitor Robert Warshaw to oversee the agency’s 15year reform plan as a result of those suits.
In Vallejo, Burris said he hopes the court takes similar action to address a “welldocumented history of violence and terror” in the North Bay city’s Police Department.
“This case allows for us to one: bring Willie McCoy’s case up front and center; but also to acknowledge, in the course of this case, that there are many, many other cases of use of deadly force, racial profiling and beatings,” Burris said.
Thursday’s lawsuit follows a wrongfuldeath and civil rightsviolation claim filed by McCoy’s family.
McCoy, a 21yearold rapper, was found unresponsive with a gun in his lap at a Taco Bell drivethrough in Vallejo on Feb. 9. After police made multiple attempts to open the locked vehicle, McCoy moved his arm and leaned forward, leading officers to fire 55 shots in 3.5 seconds. McCoy died at the scene.
An independent useofforce investigator called the Vallejo police response “reasonable and necessary” in a report released earlier this month.
Burris said it was common to file a federal wrongfuldeath lawsuit if the city rejects the claim within 45 days, but complaints usually don’t include a call for injunctive relief by demanding an independent monitor. A pattern of “unconstitutional policing” in the city’s Police Department spurred the request, he said.
The family’s attorneys listed 21 examples of improper use of force and misconduct dating back to 2012.
“In Oakland, we had to rewrite the policies, and we very well may have to in Vallejo,” Burris said.
Vallejo officials have denied “excessive” uses of force within the Police Department. At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Manager Greg Nyhoff said police had 67,176 incidents last year and 155 of them resulted in uses of force.
“There are people that just resist, there are people that have mental illnesses that you have to use force, sometimes for their own health and wellbeing,” Nyhoff said.
Vallejo’s city attorney and city manager did not respond to requests for comment on the federal lawsuit. A Vallejo police spokesman declined to comment on active litigation.
Warshaw, a former police chief in Rochester, N.Y., and deputy drug czar under President Clinton, was appointed 16 years ago to monitor Oakland’s force as officials laid out dozens of tasks for law enforcement to improve or perform before emerging from federal oversight.
Calls for independent oversight of the Oakland Police Department date back to the mid1980s, when officers were accused of “aggressive and macho” tactics in predominantly black neighborhoods, according to a Chronicle report at the time.
The issue boiled over with the Oakland Riders scandal, when a group of officers in West Oakland were accused of beating residents and planting evidence. In 2003, the city settled suits with 119 plaintiffs for $10.9 million in compensation along with a comprehensive 15year reform plan. Burris also represented some of the plaintiffs in those suits.
Among the required reforms were faster internal affairs investigations and an improved early warning system to flag and discipline problem cops, according to a 2003 Chronicle report.
In Oakland, Warshaw recently produced multiple audits finding that officers underreported useofforce incidents. He also called the department’s internal affairs probe of a fatal 2018 police shooting “deficient.”