Category: Policing

Lawsuit alleges violations of public records laws

Writer sues City of Chico for access to documents on police killings
by Leslie Layton | Posted February 23, 2022

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.

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.

“The City has made it clear, by missing its own self-imposed deadlines, again and again, that it will not comply with the law …,” states the lawsuit filed on behalf of Waddell by his San Francisco attorney, Aaron Field. read more

Settlement ends lawsuit against City of Chico

Vice mayor makes 11th-hour bid to postpone settlement
by Leslie Layton | Posted January 16, 2022

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

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.

I remember the woman standing outside her tent under the Highway 99 overpass in Lower Bidwell Park, barefoot, politely putting up with my interview, who then asked me if there was any way I could get her a new pair of socks. read more

DA Ramsey, Chico PD skirt sunshine laws

Information withheld in Butte County officer-involved killings
by Leslie Layton | Posted November 4, 2021

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

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.

Waddell, formerly this publication’s news director, says records were “unlawfully withheld” by both the DA and Chico Police Department. He has now spent about $20,000 in attorney fees seeking documents related to law enforcement killings that occurred during the 34-year tenure of DA Ramsey. (Read Waddell’s three-part series for ChicoSol on newly released records here, here and here.) read more

Desmond’s killers told inconsistent stories

DA's interview dubbed incompetent by cop expert
by Dave Waddell | Posted September 22, 2021

Desmond Phillips was killed by police on March 17, 2017.

Editor: This is part 3 in a three-part series based on newly released documents and video.

Two young Chico police officers, on the night in 2017 they gunned Desmond Phillips down, told conflicting stories to investigators about what Phillips was doing in the seconds before he was slain.

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, apparently uncomfortable with those discrepancies, brought Desmond’s killers together nearly three weeks later for a group re-interview that “no competent investigator” would have conducted, says Seth Stoughton, a former detective and nationally recognized expert on police practices. read more

Tyler Rushing in grasp of deputy when shot by cop

New videos reveal details kept secret by DA Ramsey
by Dave Waddell | Posted August 22, 2021

Tyler Rushing

(Editor: This is part 2 in a three-part series on newly released documents and video obtained through Public Records Act requests and with the help of an attorney. Read part 1 here.)

A Butte County sheriff’s deputy had both his hands on the flailing, severely wounded Tyler Rushing and was about to “sweep” him to the floor when Chico police Sgt. Scott Ruppel rushed forward and shot Rushing twice at nearly point blank range.

That’s one of the interesting details that emerge in newly released video related to the July 23, 2017, killing of Rushing on the site of a downtown business.

Deputy Ian Dickerson, who was holding Rushing when the sergeant fired, reported that his initial concern was whether the first bullet had gone through Rushing and into his own arm, which was draped across Rushing’s shoulder. Ruppel shot Rushing first in the trachea and then in the upper back. read more

Rushing death: Aldridge didn’t take command

Young K9 deputy, not Chico PD brass, devised fatal siege
by Dave Waddell | Posted August 6, 2021

photo courtesy of Rushing family

Tyler Rushing

Editor: This is part 1 in a three-part series based on newly released documents.

Billy Aldridge, now second in command at the Chico Police Department, seems to have stood on the sidelines four years ago while underlings rammed into a downtown restroom and, 42 seconds later, shot Tyler Rushing to his death.

Aldridge, then a lieutenant and now Chico’s police commander, became vocal after the shooting, ordering several officers who witnessed the incident to quit talking and directing another to turn off his body-worn camera.

Those details and numerous other facts not previously disclosed by authorities are coming to light following the release to this reporter — under threat of a lawsuit — of videotaped officer interviews. However, both Chico Police Chief Matt Madden and Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey have refused to release reams of investigative reports about the Rushing case, as well as about other recent officer-involved killings by Chico PD, including the deaths of Desmond Phillips in 2017 and Stephen Vest in 2020. read more