10 months later Antioch Police officers still on paid leave for text scandal, investigation not completed
“Let’s get the hearings done and…these guys back to work.” – APOA attorney Mike Rains
By Allen D. Payton
An investigation begun last March into the racist texts sent or received by at least two dozen Antioch Police Officers, with them being placed on paid administrative leave, is still not completed. That has left the department severely depleted from the 115 sworn officers authorized in the budget but only 81 on the force, not including the four new officers to be sworn in next Tuesday. Of that figure, 31 sworn officers are currently on some form of leave resulting in 50 actively working as of Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024.
As previously reported, most of the officers caught up in the scandal only received some of the text messages but didn’t send any. (See related articles here and here)
Questions about the situation were sent on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, to City Attorney Thomas L. Smith, Acting Chief Joe Vigil, APD media relations officers and the Vice President of the Antioch Police Officers Association (APOA) Sgt. Loren Bledsoe. They were asked, “Is the investigation of the officers on paid leave in the text scandal completed, yet? If not, when will it be completed” and “have they all been interviewed, yet? If not, when will they be interviewed, how many have been interviewed, to date and how many officers still need to be interviewed?”
They were also asked, when will the officers who merely received but didn’t send any texts be put back to work, have any of them yet and if so, how many.
Vigil was specifically asked, “How many of the sworn officers on the Antioch Police force are currently active?”
The questions were turned over to the records division as a Public Records Act (PRA) request which allows government agencies in California up to 10 business days to respond. On Wednesday, February 7, Police Records Supervisor Amanda Nelson responded, “We currently have 85 officers on our roster, to include active duty and those on some sort of leave.” But she did not provide answers to the other questions.
Vigil shared that four new officers, included in that figure, will be sworn in next Tuesday, Feb. 13 and Lt. Mike Mellone responded, “We have 31 officers on some type of leave (including both administrative and medical leave).”
But no response was received about the current status of the investigation from City Attorney Smith
UPDATE: APOA Attorney Says “Let’s Get These Guys Back to Work”
However, APOA attorney Mike Rains, who was also asked some of the same questions did respond.
“I think all the officers have been interviewed who are on leave, some once, some twice,” he stated. “I think all of the officers remain on administrative leave.”
“Some have now been fired or left because of the criminal case. But there aren’t many of them,” he continued.
Asked how many of the officers his office represents Rains said, “We represent at least 16. I’ve tried to be in constant communication with the City to try to get them to be put back to work. These guys didn’t do anything wrong. If the department thinks they did, they didn’t do anything they deserve to get fired for.”
“In many cases the investigators have said there’s no violation of policy. But the City is not obligated to follow any recommendations of the investigators although they paid them a lot of money,” the attorney shared.
Asked if he knows when the investigation will be completed, Rains responded, “I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take. I keep telling them, ‘let’s get the hearings done and let’s get these guys back to work’.”
APOA VP Responds
APOA V.P. Bledsoe commented on the situation writing, “The APOA looks forward to the conclusion of this investigation, so we can focus on rebuilding the public’s trust. The department has been faced with unprecedented staffing shortages, resulting in unsafe working conditions for officers and unacceptable response times for the public. We hope that this investigation resolves soon so we can get back to providing the best possible police services to the citizens of Antioch.”
City Required to Follow State’s Hearing Disciplinary Process
As previously reported, the City is required to follow the state’s Skelly Hearing Disciplinary Process and the council members, in spite of Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe and Councilwoman Tamisha Torres-Walker both calling for all the officers under investigation to be fired.
The Skelly Hearing process which is like a Bill of Rights for city employees in California. According to the California Department of Human Resources’ Supervisors Guide to Addressing Poor Performance, the “Skelly Hearing is the name of the hearing the employee can ask for before the adverse action becomes effective to ensure no mistakes have been made by the department in taking the action. This hearing is a short, more informal due process-review of the department’s case and the employee’s defense. It is called a Skelly Hearing because the requirement was established through a court case entitled Skelly v .SPB.”
According to unlocklegal.com, “a Skelly hearing is better described as a pre-disciplinary due process meeting. This procedural meeting ensures that when an employee is facing disciplinary action, the accused employee is informed of the allegations, has an opportunity to refute the allegations, and has an opportunity to mitigate the allegations or rehabilitate their standing with their employer before any actual disciplinary action. It is a preliminary meeting that must take place in the case of an employee’s termination, demotion, suspension, reduction in pay, or transfer with an accompanying loss in pay.”
The city manager serves as the City’s Skelly Officer. The hiring and firing of all city employees starts and ends with the city manager who signs the papers for each staff member.
In addition, police officers in California have the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act giving them an additional process and greater protections from termination.
The city council as a whole or as individuals have no say in the process of determining which city workers, including police officers, will remain employed or be terminated. The Antioch City Council currently only has the authority to hire and fire the city manager and city attorney.
