WALNUT CREEK — Residents at a City Council meeting Tuesday continued calls to reallocate funds from the Walnut Creek Police Department to other services, ban tear gas and to fire a police officer who falsified dozens of police reports.
Many of the requests came as the
City Council was about to approve its consent calendar — a list of action items
that are often considered routine business and typically approved without much
discussion. Among the list was a report from the Contra Costa County Civil
Grand Jury that recommended hiring more police officers, and the city’s
response to the letter.
The Civil Grand Jury conducts
investigations at its discretion and issues recommendations, to which public
agencies are compelled to respond. In a summary of its investigation of police
staffing in the county, it found that recruiting officers has become
challenging for most departments and recommended Walnut Creek — and other city
forces — find funding to beef up staffing, which the city rejected in its
response letter, noting that the department is fully staffed.
While some residents expressed
appreciation for the city’s refusal to hire more police officers, many took the
time to urge the city to consider defunding the police department, which totals
about $26.7 million for the next fiscal year, even though the council approved
the budget earlier in July.
“Not only does our city have a mucher
lower crime rate on average,” resident Lukas Carbone told the council during
the meeting. “Police can’t prevent crime … they only police crime.”
Others spoke in defense of the police
department, including resident Ron Giglio who said based on his own
interactions with police, he believes Walnut Creek police “safely protect and
serve residents and visitors.”
But some countered this argument,
pointing to the police response to the demonstrations on June 1 that ended with
police officers firing tear gas and rubber bullets and siccing police dogs on young people near the freeway. An online petition to ban tear gas and use only
nonviolent tactics for protests had garnered more than 4,400 signatures by
Tuesday night.
“We don’t deserve to be met with
militarized force,” said Vivian McHenry, a member of the group Friends of
Scott, Alexis and Taun Hall. That group advocates for non-police responses for
mental health on behalf of the Hall family after Miles Hall was killed a year
ago by Walnut Creek police while he was experiencing a mental health crisis.
Still others called for the firing of
Curtis Borman, a police officer in Walnut Creek who, in cases spanning 2015 and
2016, made misleading or false statements in 31 police reports, lied to a
superior about throwing drugs away during an arrest, and failed to put photos
and videos into evidence, as this news organization reported last year
Walnut Creek Police Chief Thomas Chaplin
and Captain Jay Hill did not address the public comments related to Borman in
their comments during the meeting.
Residents urged the city
council to — instead of maintaining the current level of police funding —
expand programs similar to one approved during Tuesday’s meeting: an agreement
to partner with the Trinity Center to operate a temporary homeless shelter at
the Walnut Creek Armory between October and April, as it has done for several
years.
The City Council also
approved a plan to allocate certain federal grant funding to programs to help
homeless residents or those at risk of homelessness, as well as seniors
impacted by COVID-19. The more than $200,000 the city will get in Community
Development Block Grant Stimulus Funds will go toward providing emergency
utility and rental payments for residents in need through Shelter Inc. and St.
Vincent de Paul, a city-run senior support team to help seniors with meals,
mental health and other needs during the pandemic, as well as funding for the
Trinity Center’s safe parking program to allow unhoused residents sleep safely
in their cars.
Mercury News (Bay Area News Group)
By Annie Siacca
July 22, 2020
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