Police
The report last year by MBD Innovations, a public safety consulting group, identified six key issues within the department: a lack of a compelling vision; a disconnect between management and staff; poor morale; poor handling of high-profile disciplinary cases; a lacking relationship between the city manager and the police chief; and an unnecessarily acrimonious relationship between the Richmond Police Officers Association and the Richmond Police Department (RPD) administration.
On Tuesday, the Richmond City Council voted to not proceed with annexing the unincorporated area of North Richmond, with only Mayor Tom Butt voting in favor. Additionally, Butt removed three proposed appointments to the Citizens Police Review Commission from the agenda—one of them highly controversial. Until the appointments are finalized, it leaves the commission to operate with only five out of nine members. City attorney Bruce Goodmiller also announced that the city is beginning negotiations with developer SunCal to build…
The Richmond Police Department recently went live with a new online portal dedicated to providing statistics and data on law enforcement activities in the city, completing its commitment to the Police Data Initiative started by the Obama administration in 2015. Joining the ranks of Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose, the city’s website, Richmond Open Data, provides general information on categories such as calls for service, traffic stops and use of force incidents in a spreadsheet format, which can be…
The February Citizen’s Police Review Commission (CPRC) meeting began with the announcement of a $20,000 allocation to streamline CPRC’s administrative tasks and ended with a discussion on the death of Pedie Perez, who was killed by a Richmond police officer in 2014.
Richmond Police Sgt. Florencio Rivera lifts a thick leather belt from the trunk of his police cruiser. He points to several objects dangling from it — pepper spray, handcuffs, riot baton, pistol, Taser — and explains: These are just stand-ins. The baton is made of foam, the Taser is unloaded, and the pistol fires Airsoft pellets. Together, they represent a pretend version of the “duty kit” carried by Richmond officers. Rivera is supervising a mock scenario as part of the…
Richmond Police met with residents over coffee to improve community and law enforcement relationships.
Court documents submitted in an ongoing case indicate that Richmond Police Department Sergeant Michael Rood sent “numerous inappropriate and sexually suggestive” text messages to the head of a medical marijuana dispensary he was tasked with regulating.