Dozens of police officers in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Antioch are under fire after excerpts from their personal group chat filled with racist and homophobic text messages have been made public. Citizens and the city’s mayor are outraged and question if the bigoted sentiments in the exchanges color how officers police the community.
The texts came to light on April 11 after The Bay Area News Group obtained a copy of an investigative report written by Contra Costa District Attorney Senior Inspector Larry Wallace about the group’s messages to each other.
The texting scandal is at the center of an FBI investigation and Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office investigation into Bay Area police departments that dates back to 2019, according to ABC 7 News.
The investigations identified 17 officers as participants in the chat, making up approximately a quarter of the Antioch Police Department, but the East Bay Times reports that 44 Antioch officers have gotten as least one message included in the investigation of the group.
By Wednesday, April 12, 17 of those officers had been placed on leave. Some have resigned, and others are working on the force but not in roles that are public-facing.
The texts excerpted in the reports from a second, 14-page report emerged Friday, April 14, reveal a pattern of officers using racial epithets to refer to African-Americans and expressing both a desire to use violence against them and satisfaction at doing so.
“I’ll bury that n—-r in my fields,” Antioch Sgt. Joshua Evans texted Officer Morteza Amiri in December 2020.
In February 2020 Amiri texted Officer Eric Rombough, “No they didn’t push it that far. Bunch of gorillas surrounding us and taunting a fight since we were hooking [epithet].”
The messges, which weren’t always limited to Antioch officers, sometimes show officers openly admitting to violating citizens’ constitutional rights.
“Since we don’t have video I sometimes just say people gave me a full confession when they didn’t. Gets filed easier,” Amiri texted an officer in Brentwood, another Contra Costa County city, in April 2020. The Antioch City Council voted the following year to equip its officers with body cameras.
Other messages showed officers carrying out their expressed wishes for violence.
In March 2021 Antioch officers were planning a raid to arrest 22-year-old Terryonn Pugh and Trent Allen. One report document shows Officer Rombough texting Detective Robert Gerber, “Bro I can’t wait to forty all of them,” referring to using the nonlethal sponge rounds officers use during a raid.
Days later, after the raid, Rombough messaged another officer, “Bro, my foot hurts.” Asked if he’d kicked one of the men, Rombough replied, “Yup, like a f—— field goal,” before adding, “Gotta stop kicking n—–s in their head.”
Pugh’s lawyer Carmela Caramagno told ABC7, “It is clear that the Antioch Police Department has treated that community like a war zone, and the community members as if they were hostiles.” Antioch’s population is around 24% Black, according to 2020 census data.
Mayor Lamar Thorpe called for a special meeting to discuss the text messages, a town hall discussion that ended with heated emotions and many up in arms.
The mayor, an African-American man, said he was “disgusted” by what he learned about the text messages. The report showed that during a chat about a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June 2020 Officer John Ramirez sent a text saying he’d buy a prime rib dinner at a steakhouse to officer who used .40mm sponge bullets against Thorpe.
“I’m blown away that there were threats to my personal life in those text messages,” Thorpe said this week about the threat, CBS News reported.
The mayor is calling for all of the officers featured in the investigation to be fired.
During the meeting, Thorpe snapped at one of his constituents. The person asked for the mayor also to be investigated.
“I am sick and tired of being attacked by these people in this community apologizing for the racism going on in this community,” Thorpe said, adding, “You’re the problem! You’re the problem!”
At one point, the mayor seemed to invite the man outside to a fistfight, saying, “You want to go outside? Let’s go!”
“It’s not just the police department who provides cover for people like this who are on these text messages,” Thorpe later told local station KTVU. “There are residents in this community who will put up a fight to protect the culture that exists in that department.”
The FBI began looking into the APD and the Pittsburg Police Department after reports suggested officers were engaged in illegal activity. The officers were not only accused of violating citizens’ civil rights but also alleged to be dealing cocaine and steroids, intentionally using excessive force, and accepting bribes.
