Police don’t need military-grade weapons "Chico is not in a war zone"

photo courtesy of George Gold

by George Gold
guest commentary posted April 1

In 1987, there was a bank robbery in North Hollywood, California. I remember it because I used to live in North Hollywood. I remember it because the bank robbers were heavily armed, were dressed in body armor, and the police on the scene were, as they say, out gunned. As the shootout went on for some time, some of the cops on scene actually went to nearby gun stores to obtain some more powerful weapons.

This event has been used by police departments across the country to arm themselves with ever more powerful weapons. This bank robbery was tragic and horrible. But there has never been another event like that since 1987; certainly never in Chico. And yet police departments have continued to arm themselves, and then we, as law abiding people, are treated as if we are aligned with the bank robbers of North Hollywood. read more

Waddell honored with Freedom of Information Award SPJ NorCal comments on ChicoSol stories

photo courtesy of Jason Halley
Dave Waddell

by Leslie Layton
posted March 16

ChicoSol contributor Dave Waddell was honored today – on Freedom of Information Day – as a “transparency champion” for work that accessed public records related to three killings involving the Chico Police Department.

Waddell received the Freedom of Information Award in the small Print and Digital division for ChicoSol stories on the killings of Desmond Phillips, Tyler Rushing and Stephen Vest. The 37th annual James Madison Freedom of Information competition awards were presented today by the Society of Professional Journalists Northern California (SPJ) chapter. read more

City of Chico takes case to Supreme Court Justices asked to nix trial over Tyler Rushing's Tasing

by Dave Waddell

The City of Chico has escalated its increasingly expensive legal fight with the family of Tyler Rushing by petitioning the highest court in the land.

A Southern California law firm last week filed a motion on behalf of the City with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn an appellate court ruling that ordered part of the Rushing family’s wrongful death lawsuit against the City to proceed to trial.

Seth Stoughton, a top expert on police use of force and a professor of law at the University of South Carolina, said in an email reply to questions that the City’s so-called petition for writ of certiorari has a “snowball-in-hell chance” of being granted by the high court. read more

Lawsuit alleges violations of public records laws Writer sues City of Chico for access to documents on police killings

photo by Karen Waddell
Writer Dave Waddell shows blacked-out pages that were sent him as part of an autopsy report. His attorney alleges “excessive” redacting.

by Leslie Layton
posted Feb. 23, 2022

The City of Chico may have lost or destroyed public records related to police killings, and has stonewalled for more than a year in response to record requests, says a lawsuit filed Feb. 18 against the City.

A lawsuit filed by ChicoSol contributing writer Dave Waddell in Butte County Superior Court says the City is in violation of the California Public Records Act because of its continual “withholding of records” as well as its “excessive redactions” in those records that have been released. read more

Settlement ends lawsuit against City of Chico Vice mayor makes 11th-hour bid to postpone settlement

photo by Karen Laslo
Evicted campers leave their site after a sweep.

by Leslie Layton / commentary
posted Jan. 15

A settlement agreement in the lawsuit related to the city’s treatment of unhoused people, signed Friday by a federal judge, could end the spectacle of chaotic mass evictions that stranded campers who had nowhere to go.

Early last year, a newly-installed City Council began a series of sweeps in parks, near waterways and on patches of grass on public land.

Journalists watched as workers came in atop tractors, rumbling through encampments where displaced people had pitched tents and had failed to move their few belongings to who knows where – until we weren’t allowed to watch. read more

DA Ramsey, Chico PD skirt sunshine laws Information withheld in Butte County officer-involved killings

photo by Karen Laslo
2017 Desmond Phillips vigil at Chico Police Department.

by Leslie Layton
story updated at 4 p.m. Nov. 4

Local law enforcement agencies violated the law when they failed to respond fully and promptly – the Butte County District Attorney’s Office didn’t respond for months — to public record requests made by a local journalist.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey didn’t respond to a pair of public record requests made by ChicoSol contributor Dave Waddell during the 10-day period required by the California Public Records Act (CPRA), and in fact didn’t respond at all until Waddell hired an attorney. read more