ANTIOCH — Time and time again, Antioch police supervisors reviewed reports detailing the use of a less-lethal gun and K9 deployments on civilians and reached the same conclusion: The violence conformed with department guidelines and no discipline nor extra training was needed.
The FBI and a federal grand jury reached a markedly different conclusion: that those same acts violated policies, constituted violent crimes that carry prison terms and were part of a years-long scheme to violate the civil rights of citizens. The officers who OK’d these use-of-force incidents include the city’s police union president and the current and former acting police chiefs, according to new records released by the city of Antioch.
“Force appears to be within policy,” Sgt. Rick Hoffman wrote after Officer Eric Rombough fired a less-lethal projectile at a man who was backing toward officers with his hands on his head. The indictment against Rombough and officers Morteza Amiri and Devon Wenger now lists this Aug. 31, 2021, incident as one of dozens of elements of the alleged “scheme” to violate civil rights.
Hoffman — the president of the Antioch Police Officers Association — forwarded his conclusion to Lt. Joseph Vigil, who is now serving as the acting police chief in the wake of Chief Steven Ford’s abrupt resignation earlier this year. Both Vigil and Lt. Desmond Bittner agreed “no action” was necessary, the records show.
“The Use of Force observed was consistent with agency best practices and policy,” Vigil wrote.
“This is what happens when the fox guards the henhouse,” said civil rights attorney Ben Nisenbaum, who represents several Antioch residents suing the police department. “They’re not looking at a set of standards to enforce, they’re looking at ‘how can we exonerate the officers?’”
Rombough’s Aug. 31, 2021, 40mm deployment is one of four such incidents detailed in documents recently released by the city, in response to a records request by this news organization. The outcomes were consistent: all were cleared by Hoffman and other higher-ups within the department, and all are now mentioned in the criminal indictment.
Amiri, Rombough and Wenger were indicted last August at the end of an FBI and Contra Costa District Attorney-led investigation that took more than 18 months and resulted in federal and state charges against 14 current and former Antioch and Pittsburg officers. The charges include the alleged civil rights violation, an alleged scheme to fraudulently obtain education incentive pay by cheating on college tests, accepting bribes to make traffic tickets go away and tipping off an alleged gang member who was being wiretapped as part of a murder investigation.
Amiri, Rombough, and Wenger — the only three of the bunch charged with violent crimes — were known in the department as proactive officers who were present at numerous arrests. Amiri, a K9 officer, was involved in dozens of police dog bite incidents and Rombough was allegedly saving less-lethal projectiles that he fired at people to use as stars on a giant American flag he hung above the mantle in his Solano County home.
Neither Vigil nor the Antioch police union responded to multiple requests for comment.
Rombough was also part of the so-called Problem Oriented Policing Team which focuses on high-crime neighborhoods in Antioch. That placed many of his use-of-force incidents under review by Hoffman, who served as the POP Team’s sergeant in 2021. Hoffman, like dozens of Antioch officers who sent or received racist, sexist and homophobic text messages, was placed on administrative leave earlier this year.
The city also released records showing Amiri was cleared in dog bite cases mentioned in the indictment, including when he sicced his canine on a man he stopped for not having a light on his bicycle. Another dog bite incident mentioned in the records was referred to internal affairs by Sgt. Joshua Evans — who has since been placed on leave for repeated use of racial slurs in text messages — but the city provided no records indicating Amiri was ever disciplined.
In the Aug. 31 incident, Amiri later texted another officer that Rombough was doing “unnecessary a– 40s,” but later texted Rombough and another officer in a thread, “This s— is fun,” according to the indictment.
Exactly one week earlier, Rombough fired a less-lethal projectile at a man named only as “J.W.,” during a search of his home. The indictment says he raised his hands as officers entered his home to serve a search warrant and that four other officers — one of whom had grabbed J.W.’s arm — were detaining him when Rombough fired the 40mm weapon at close range. The use violated department policies, federal prosecutors say.
But Hoffman, in a report signed off by Vigil and Bittner, concluded that the “subject appeared to be reaching in between mattress and headboard. Force appears to be within policy.”
The indictment says that an unnamed officer — referred to only as “Officer 12” and a sergeant — told Rombough there were issues with the way he wrote his initial report.
“You write that he didn’t comply but he clearly had his hands up at first. You need to describe way better what happened,” Officer 12 wrote.
In another incident, on Feb. 9, 2021, Rombough deployed a 40mm on a person’s lower back, which the indictment notes Antioch officers are taught in annual training is a “potentially lethal” area to avoid. Hoffman once again concluded the force was “within policy” and Vigil and the acting chief before Ford — Capt. Tony Morefield — signed off on Hoffman’s conclusion.
A day earlier, Amiri and Rombough exchanged texts about using the 40mm gun in an upcoming law enforcement operation, the indictment says.
“(Wife) says she will purchase you a box of cookies if you 40 him,” Amiri allegedly wrote.
“Done I’ll 40 a few people this week,” Rombough allegedly replied.