The Sonoma County grand jury report was prompted by the indictment of two former Rohnert Park officers on extortion and conspiracy charges.
Rohnert Park — A 2021-22
Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury report has called for greater police protocols
and oversight in Rohnert Park after the U.S. Department of Justice accused two
officers there of "shaking down" motorists for drugs and cash.
Officers Brendan
"Jacy" Tatum and Joseph Huffaker were patrol officers that conducted
department-sanctioned traffic stops between 2015 and 2017 along U.S. Highway
101 between Cloverdale and Rohnert Park in an attempt to stem the flow of
illegal marijuana between Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
When cannabis became legal
in California, the focused program wound down and was eventually stopped in
2017, but federal prosecutors allege that Tatum and Huffaker continued to stop
people suspected of having cannabis and cash in their vehicles and used their
"color of official right" to lean on motorist victims to hand over
their drugs and cash or face arrest.
The DOJ alleges that the
pair would even falsely portray themselves as federal Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents to further leverage their power over
alleged victims and use unmarked cars.
Last December, Tatum
pleaded guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of
official right as well as falsifying records and tax evasion. The DOJ says that
Tatum extorted at least $3,700 in cash and significant amounts of marijuana
from drivers they stopped on Highway 101 by threatening to arrest them and
seize the assets of marijuana if the drivers did not consent to the seizures.
Tatum would make no report
of the seizures, did not put the marijuana into evidence, and sought no
destruction orders for the pot.
"These seizures were
completely undocumented by the officers," the DOJ said.
However, the acts were
captured on body-worn cameras.
Tatum allegedly made
"hundreds of thousands" of cash deposits into his own private bank
account as well as his wife's; each deposit was under $10,00o in an attempt to
circumvent banking laws requiring disclosure of the deposits. Tatum also used
$46,000 in cash to buy a fishing boat. The DOJ said there were $443,059 in cash
deposits and purchases, all unreported on his taxes.
The other officer,
Huffaker, has pleaded not guilty and is still facing trial. A status conference
regarding his case is set for next Wednesday in San Francisco.
Enter the county Civil
Grand Jury, which opted to examine police oversight — or lack thereof — in
Rohnert Park, not only out of ethical reasons but because the city has been
socked with $2 million in settlements for three racketeering lawsuits stemming
from the alleged actions of Tatum and Huffaker.
The grand jury found that
"significant progress" toward eliminating misconduct has been made in
the city's Department of Public Safety in the wake of the scandal, but that
further improvements are needed to enhance oversight and adherence to
department regulations, primarily through better oversight by the city manager
and City Council.
"It is alleged that
the two rogue officers were able to extort drugs and cash from motorists for at
least two years without anyone in the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety
or the city manager's office being aware of their illicit activities," the
jury's report reads. "Numerous factors were identified as having
contributed to the ability of these officers to behave with impunity over the
course of several years."
One section of the report
specifically calls out the public safety department for promoting Tatum from
officer to sergeant in 2015 and giving him the "Officer of the Year"
award for his drug interdiction activities. The year before, Tatum led a
probation search that was deemed a violation of the civil rights of the
homeowners and cost the city of Rohnert Park a settlement of $145,000.
The reason the officers
received kudos for their drug interdiction efforts was because their seizures
regularly exceeded the seizures taken in by larger police forces in bigger
cities, the jury said.
"The grand jury found
no evidence that red flags or other concerns were raised either in the
department or the city manager's office," the report reads. "In fact,
it appears they were regarded as model officers by both the rank and file and
many supervisors within the department."
The jury offered an
example of poor oversight by describing a 750-pound haul of marijuana taken in
by the officers, which they publicly claimed to the department, yet only logged
a 10-pound sample of it into evidence and no destruction orders for the
remaining pot were ever located.
"There is no
documentation that the department undertook any type of spot-checking to verify
that the marijuana had, in fact, been destroyed."
The jury's report,
entitled "Better Procedures to Avoid Future Misconduct," outlines
seven findings and seven recommendations.
The jury found that the
previous city manager wrote one formal evaluation of the previous director of
public safety in five years and recommends that this be done annually.
Similarly, the present director of public safety has only received one written
evaluation in three years, and it was done six months after he was hired. The
jury suggests that this annual review include input from a "representative
sample" of Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety personnel.
The jury also found that
there is no procedural requirement dictating regular meetings between the
director of public safety and the city manager and that the director of public
safety is not required to provide presentations or department updates to the
City Council in a public setting, which would provide more transparency.
It recommends creating a
presentation calendar for the council and greater communication between the
Public Safety Officers Association and the city manager. It also recommended
that the Department of Public Safety establish a Chief's Community Round Table.
Finally, police vehicle
tracking "has been and remains inadequate," said the jury,
recommending that the City Council provide funding to install GPS tracking on
all police vehicles.
The Civil Grand Jury's
report requires a response from the city of Rohnert Park, which has yet to
answer, and invites responses from Rohnert Park City Manager Darrin Jenkins and
Director of Public Safety Tim Mattos.
Bay City News
News Partner
September 2, 2022
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