Open Vallejo has reported that Chief Shawny Williams, whom the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association has targeted  since shortly after his arrival in 2019, is on a weeks-long vacation, while the following hires, promotions, and program terminations are taking place within the department:

• Kevin H. Williams, Texas State University Police Chief and former Lieutenant from LAPD will become deputy chief in Vallejo in November.
• Vallejo Police Lt. Bobby Knight is set to be promoted to the rank of Provisional Captain. Night is a board member of VPOA.
• Provisional Capt. Drew Ramsay has been elevated to a permanent captain position.
• Sgt. Jeremy Huff has been promoted to lieutenant.
• Operation PEACE, a favorite project of Chief Williams, will be disbanded. 
• The Community Services Section will be disbanded. 

Deputy chief is a new, non-VPOA position that is not part of the city’s contract with the VPOA. The three who were promoted from within are long-term VPOA members. 

We need to know what is going on at VPD. Was Chief Williams involved in any of these decisions? Is the VPOA now in control of promotions? 

It is common practice for police department chiefs to tout the backgrounds of those appointed to senior command positions. Chief Williams has been silent about these promotions. He had not made permanent appointments into these positions for many months. VPOA announced in July that it was taking legal action against Williams to fill these positions.

They city’s current MOU with the VPOA does not allow the chief to fill senior command positions from outside the department. This is not the norm for law enforcement. In a department where so many of the veteran officers are part of the badge bending culture, it is critical that a chief be able to consider applicants from outside the department. 

The VPOA is profiled in the New Yorker magazine article “How a deadly police union ruled a city.” It has a record of denying that any of its members has engaged in excessive force, while the city has paid many millions of dollars for misconduct by VPOA members. It has persistently worked to undermine the reputation Chief Williams and his efforts at reform. It blames Chief Williams for the recent violent crime surge in Vallejo in spite of the fact that violent crime has been up nationwide since the pandemic. While VPOA laments low staffing, they routinely retweet job listings at other California law enforcement organizations, effectively discouraging potential applicants to the VPD. It appears that they are more interested in seeing the Williams administration fail than in helping with recruitment.

This sudden and secretive rise to new power by the VPOA suggests that its war to restore the old VPD is succeeding. 

The city and the VPOA are in negotiations for a new MOU. Meanwhile, efforts to ratify a police oversight ordinance have stalled. City Attorney Veronica Nebb indicated in August that she would soon submit her own draft ordinance for council consideration. Several council members have expressed a desire to have police oversight in place during the term of the current council. Yet nothing regarding police oversight has been agendized. 

We need police oversight now more than ever. Please contact your city council representative and demand it! Ask questions about the apparent lack of involvement of Chief Williams in the disturbing promotions, the ascendancy of the VPOA, and a target date for the implementation of an oversight ordinance. 

The next City Council meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7 pm