SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a move that deepened the scandals engulfing the Antioch Police Department, a Contra Costa County judge on Friday released the names of 17 city police officers accused of using racist slurs, jokes and memes in text messages over a period of more than two years.
The names include the president of Antioch’s police union, as well as five officers already under investigation by the FBI for alleged crimes. The judge also named 11 other Antioch officers — at least eight of whom have been put on leave over the group texts, which reportedly included frequent use of racial slurs as well as racist memes.
In releasing the names, Judge Clare Maier urged caution, saying the content of the messages was so offensive it could “incite further hate or racial animus.”
But, she said, information about the texts — and the identities of the officers involved — “doesn’t deserve protection” under the California evidence code. She did not disclose what each officer is accused of actually sending but generally categorized the content as “deeply disturbing” and targeting “members of the Black and Hispanic community.”
Among the officers Maier named was Rick Hoffman, the president of the Antioch Police Association, who has been a frequent critic of Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe, a police-reform advocate. Hoffman was among the officers placed on leave over the texts, according to multiple Antioch law enforcement officials.
“We’ll go through some challenges because of staffing. Absolutely,” said Thorpe. “But if that’s what they’re doing (making racist and homophobic texts), I don’t want them here.”
Police Chief Steven Ford did not respond to a request for comment.
“I haven’t seen any text messages. I don’t know what the content is. Until I know more, I think it’s irresponsible for me to say anything,” said attorney Michael Rains, who represents Antioch police officers.
The existence of the text messages became known last month as a result of an ongoing federal probe into Antioch and Pittsburg police officers, but Friday’s developments made clear just how many officers are involved in both scandals plaguing APD.
The FBI — which is investigating alleged fraud, bribery, drug distribution and civil rights violations related to the use of force — found the messages after agents served search warrants on a number of officers’ homes and showed up at the police department to seize phones and other personal items.
The first offensive messages date to September 2019, and they continued until January 2022 when the phones were seized, Maier said.
Of the officers Maier named, five — Devon Wenger, Eric Rombough, Andrea Rodriguez, Calvin Prieto and Morteza Amiri — already have been placed on leave amid the FBI investigation. A sixth, Tim Manly, has resigned from the department.
In addition to Rombough and Manly, six other officers — Joshua Evans, Jonathan Adams, Scott Duggar, Robert Gerber, Thomas Smith and Brock Marcotte — are accused of specifically referencing in the texts alleged members of the Oakland-based ENT gang during an investigation that resulted in 48 arrests. Those texts were sent during a 10-day period in March 2021 when Antioch police were wiretapping phones of the people under investigation.
Maier ordered those text messages be released to defense attorneys, whose four defendants are part of the ENT case and are mentioned in the officers’ texts. The messages may undermine the prosecution of their clients as attorneys use the material to attack the motives and character of police investigators and witnesses.
The defense attorneys in the ENT case now are expected to file motions to dismiss charges under the Racial Justice Act, arguing that their clients, all Black men, were investigated by racist cops who were out to get them.
The material can be expected to surface again in other criminal cases involving those same police officers, as well as the others Maier named. That list also includes Aaron Hughes, Brayton Milner, John Ramirez and Kyle Smith.
Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton released a statement Friday acknowledging Maier’s ruling but limited her comments, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.
It will be up to the courts to decide whether the officers’ texts justify dismissing charges against the people they were investigating. That includes people officers referred to directly in the texts, as well as any other Black and Latino person who was investigated or arrested by the officers, and could argue they were targeted due to their race.
Already, as a result of the FBI probe, dozens of federal and state cases — some involving Rombough, Marcotte and Amiri — have been dismissed.
For the Delta-adjacent city of roughly 100,000, racial tension has bubbled barely below the surface for years as gentrification in the western Bay Area uprooted people from San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond and into the deep East Bay.
In 2000, Antioch was 65% white. Now, 39% of Antioch’s residents are white, while Latino or Hispanics make up 34.5% of the city, and the Black population has increased from 10 to 20% over two decades, according to census data.
Attitudes toward police have changed drastically, too. In the early 2010s, residents regularly pressured the City Council and police chief to hire more officers, faster, out of concern for growing crime rates. A decade later, in 2020, a younger generation of city residents staged protests and even a hunger strike to speak out against police brutality.
“I’ve had my eye on Antioch for a long time. This is proof-positive what people who have been watching Antioch already knew — that it is full of officers who do not deserve to wear the badge,” civil rights attorney Adante Pointer said Friday.
“It’s no wonder why the public has lost faith in law enforcement and why we see Black and Brown people over-represented in the criminal justice system when the people administering it are racist,” Pointer said.
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