Vallejo issues state of emergency over police staffing shortages
VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Council on Tuesday approved an emergency proclamation regarding staffing shortages at the police department.
According to Vallejo Police spokesperson Sgt. Rashad Hollis, the proclamation will help the city find ways to utilize resources such as law enforcement from nearby municipalities, using retired officers, and "potentially changing shifts or allowing outside officers to fill in on the graveyard shifts."
The council also said the city should find creative ways to recruit new officers, such as higher pay for lateral officers and incentives to retain current officers.
The Vallejo Police Officers Association, the police union, has been very vocal about staffing shortages on the force, but declared the emergency proclamation "unconscionable" in a letter to the council on Tuesday.
"This is a policy-driven 'emergency' resulting from the City Council's continued disrespect for our officers and the work that we do," reads the letter. "The Councilmembers' refusal to engage in meaningful and productive labor negotiations with the VPOA has reached a point from which we may never recover."
The union further said that the proclamation is a band-aid at a time when "crime is out of control" and traffic safety is "nonexistent." VPOA alleges that the proclamation is a way for the city to sidestep negotiations with the union and asserting that bringing in mutual aid from other law enforcement agencies "cannot be invoked due to conditions created by a labor controversy."
The VPOA, the council and the community all agree that there is chronic understaffing at the police department. Last year, the union said that 20 percent of the force had left because of former Police Chief Shawny Williams. However, Williams said that officers have left because of the decrepit and outdated headquarters, which is cramped, has toxins like asbestos and lead, and appears dated and drab.
But the Vallejo Police Department's marred reputation has been trying to move on from the disastrous so-called "Gone Girl" case, where detectives bungled a kidnapping investigation. Then there's the 19 people killed by police there since 2010.
Though police-involved shootings fell precipitously on Williams' watch, the killing of Sean Monterrosa in the Walgreens parking lot during the George Floyd protests of 2020 came during his tenure. The Monterrosa shooting remains a controversial and painful mark on the department and sparked an investigation by the California Department of Justice.
Interim Vallejo Police Chief Jason Ta said tackling the staffing problem will require "difficult discussions and even harder choices."
"I am optimistic that city leadership, elected officials and the police department can collaboratively formulate a public safety plan that can immediately enhance public safety."
Understaffing isn't just a problem in Vallejo. Like nursing, less people are entering the field of law enforcement in California, according to the Commission of Police Officer Standards and Training, which certifies new officers every year. In 2022, it issued the lowest number of basic certificates for new officers since 2013.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California in 2021, the number of patrol officers per 100,000 residents of the state was the lowest it had been since 1991.