Open Vallejo

The City of Vallejo has purchased a cell site simulator, a powerful surveillance technology, without complying with a state law that requires public input. The Vallejo Police Department has already used the device two dozen times — up to 10 of them without first getting a warrant, according to an activist who is now suing the city.

Revelations about Councilmember Hakeem Brown’s history of domestic violence have wracked Vallejo, resulting in rescinded endorsements of his mayoral campaign and an effort to have him recalled from city council.

Vallejo police are in a state of emergency. Crime is up and so are civil rights settlements, including a $5.7 million settlement to the family of Ronell Foster, who say they won’t stop fighting until Officer Ryan McMahon is convicted for his death.  Last month, he became the first Vallejo cop to lose his job over a shooting — but only because he endangered another cop. 

The Vallejo Police Department has a history of violating residents’ Fourth Amendment rights, a lesson Vallejo’s children learn from a young age.

Ashley and Michelle Monterrosa joined the family-led movement to end Vallejo police violence when Detective Jarrett Tonn killed their brother on June 2, 2020. Raised in an activist family in San Francisco, they say they want their brother to be the last person killed by police in Vallejo, a city that continues to pay out millions to settle civil rights lawsuits, almost two dozen of which are currently pending in federal court.

Vallejo’s police department is looking to hire more officers as their salaries continue to rise. Meanwhile, the city council may be violating public meeting laws, and a proposal for a Black Lives Matter mural is met with skepticism.

The family of Sean Monterrosa has filed a lawsuit against the City of Vallejo and his killer, Det. Jarrett Tonn, but the interim city attorney wants the trial moved hundreds of miles away. Meanwhile, the city council tries to placate the public over a $2.4 million increase to the police budget by dangling the possibility of an oversight body. But in 2012, the city’s public safety board refused to discuss police misconduct, even as officers killed residents at 38 times the national rate.

The City of Vallejo’s new, $97,000 use-of-force dashboard omits multiple prominent police killings, its city council silently reviews written public comments, and the head of its police union says its department doesn’t take others’ problem officers — despite his own history of excessive force in Oakland.

Vallejo police killed six people in 2012. Three of these killings were the work of a single officer: Sean Kenney. One public defender says there were plenty of red flags in Kenney’s personnel file years before he shot his first person — not to mention his fifth.

Sean Monterrosa was the 19th person killed by Vallejo police in the last decade. This episode examines the city’s response after Det. Jarrett Tonn — already involved in three other shootings — fired five times from the backseat of an unmarked truck, amid nationwide protests against police violence following the death of George Floyd.

In this new podcast, Open Vallejo will examine what it is like being policed — and being police — in Vallejo, California. If you have something that needs to be heard, please let us know.