Tag: Chico Police Department

Chico PD works to improve image, community relations

Police reform advocates call for policy changes
by Natalie Hanson | Posted April 29, 2024

photo by Karen Laslo
Chicoans at a protest several years ago.

The Chico Police Department, after facing years of scrutiny over transparency and accountability concerns, has launched an effort to improve its community image.

Chico PD’s administration has within the last six months jump-started several efforts to improve its public image, announcing today the results of its Community Survey, which can be found here.

Chief Billy Aldridge, who assumed leadership in December 2022, has re-organized the department’s Police Community Advisory Board (PCAB) that the City says is “working to enhance communication and transparency.” The board’s formation follows years of pressure from community members who want improvement in the public’s ability to air concerns and grievances. read more

Chico man: Incident with police began with racial profiling

State of California gathers data on policing practices
by Leslie Layton | Posted June 1, 2023

photo by Karen Laslo
Steve Eaton wants to discuss policing in Chico.

Steve Eaton is still troubled by what happened to him on the last day of March as he drove down an unmarked residential street in the part of old Chico known as The Avenues.

When he was pulled over by a Chico police officer, he remembers telling himself to stay calm and be polite. Surely whatever problem there was would be resolved quickly. But Eaton says his California driver’s license and an obliging attitude didn’t satisfy Officer Juan Valencia, who contended from the start that the 44-year-old African American man had been driving “erratically.”

Eaton was baffled, and told the officer, “It’s beginning to seem like you’re racially profiling me.” And from there the interaction went downhill — rapidly. read more

Police expert: Excessive shots by Chico officer

Vest, when down, shot twice in back, and in back of neck
by Dave Waddell | Posted January 28, 2021

photo from “The Daily Show”
Former police officer and use-of-force expert Seth Stoughton interviewed by television host Trevor Noah.

An ex-cop who researches police use-of-force issues says an excessive number of shots were fired by Chico police officer Tyler Johnson in his October killing of Stephen Vest.

At a Jan. 14 media briefing, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey ruled that Johnson, who fired nine shots, and police Sgt. Nick Bauer, who shot twice, were justified in killing Vest and would face no criminal charges. Vest, 30, was in a meth-fueled mental crisis and holding a knife when shot.

Vest was hit by a total of eight police bullets, including six rounds from Johnson’s 9mm Glock. Johnson shot Vest twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, twice in the back, and once in the back of the neck. Video from Johnson’s body-worn camera indicates the neck shot came when Vest was on his knees, head bowed, falling forward. The barrage of bullets ended with two final rounds into Vest’s back as his midsection touched the asphalt. read more

Picking Chico’s police chief slowed by Covid-19

Reformist citizens group says it represents broad spectrum
by Dave Waddell | Posted June 25, 2020

photo by Karen Laslo
Emily Alma, coordinator of a police reform group that was wrongly accused of political disruption and now has support from a host of mainstream groups.

Two years ago, the Chico Enterprise-Record’s conservative editorial writers – without a shred of cited evidence – suggested in an editorial that members of the police reform group Concerned Citizens for Justice (CC4J) were involved in political disruption and vandalism.

Leaders of CC4J fired back in letters that questioned the responsibility of the E-R’s brand of journalism.

The E-R’s portrayal of CC4J as an extremist group was as short-lived as it was baseless. In fact, today CC4J’s push for Chico to pick a reformer as police chief to succeed Mike O’Brien is attracting support from numerous organizations lodged securely in Chico’s mainstream.

CC4J circulated a letter to some in the community that has been signed by what Emily Alma, the group’s coordinator, described as 40 prominent community groups and individuals. Included are the NAACP, National Association on Mental Illness, Work Training Center, Arc of Butte County, Disability Action Center of Chico, and the Trinity United Methodist Church. read more

Sheriff’s office responsive, Chico PD obstructive

Two agencies, two different responses to our public records request
by Dave Waddell | Posted December 30, 2019

photo by Karen Laslo

Chico Police Chief Mike O’Brien

Last March, I spoke at a League of Women Voters of Butte County forum having to do with public access to law enforcement records.

That Sunshine Week forum, which included Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea and police reformers Emily Alma and Margaret Swick, gave me an opportunity to vent a bit about the most secretive public agency I’ve dealt with as a journalist: the city of Chico.

At the forum I said something that, if anything, is even truer today: Chico city government has no respect for the people’s right to know.

That’s been the case when liberals have controlled the City Council; it’s been true when conservatives had the majority. It was true before the city quit having an on-staff city attorney in 2014. But the secrecy has been taken to new dimensions since Chico began renting legal services from a law firm based near Los Angeles. The firm, Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin, is practiced at keeping what should be public information hidden from Chico’s citizens. One example I cited at the forum was the contrived City Hall secrecy around Chico police officers’ gun-buying — at public expense but for the private ownership of the officers — at a gun shop owned by two Chico cops. read more