For Rick and Julie Perez, Spring Street just off Carlson Boulevard holds many memories of their late son, Richard “Pedie” Perez. Pedie Perez, who grew up there, where the family business still sits, felt proud about his neighborhood, his mother recalled.
“I came here one day and noticed the Spring Street sign was inside our building,” Julie Perez told a crowd of about 35 people who attended an Oct. 26 ceremony to unveil the street’s new name, Pedie Perez Avenue, renamed to honor her son, who was killed nearby by a Richmond police officer 10 years ago.
After asking her son how he got the sign, fearing he had taken it himself, Perez said he told her he had picked it up after a truck had knocked it onto the street.
“I asked him ‘What do you want it for?’ and he very proudly said ‘Because that’s the name of our street,’ ” she said.
On Sept. 14, 2014, 24-year-old Pedie Perez was fatally shot in the early morning hours by then Richmond police officer Wallace Jensen at the doorstep of the neighborhood corner store, Uncle Sam’s Liquor on Cutting Boulevard, less than half mile from his family’s business, Perez Brothers Paper Recycling.
Rick Perez appreciates his son being remembered as he advocates for change
The street sign isn’t the only memorial for Perez. In May, community members honored his life with mosaics of his artwork installed on sidewalk waste receptacles where he died. The art depicts him at different stages of his life into his early adulthood.
In his father’s eyes, the commemorations were a long time coming and are a recognition of what he and many in the community have been yearning for.
“You don’t know how many people come up to me all the time and tell me he deserves that respect,’” Rick Perez told Richmondside in an interview earlier this year. “I go to that store (Uncle Sam’s) most everyday on the way home from work. Folks will come up to me and tell me, ‘Hi, Pedie’s daddy.’ It makes me feel good.”
Perez said he once met a man at Uncle Sam’s who told him he knew his son while they were students at Pinole Valley High School and that they used to hang out at Uncle Sam’s.
“That’s not a good thing,” Perez jokingly chuckled.
The memories and frequent interactions with neighbors who knew his son are his therapy, said Perez, even though he feels like he’s a member of a club that he wouldn’t wish for anyone to be a part of.
“I don’t ever want anyone to go through what I’ve been through,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do to bring him back in this life, but I have my faith.”
Today, Perez spends much of his time doing whatever he can to keep the memory of his son alive and advocating for reform within Richmond’s police department — from regularly attending Richmond City Council and Community Police Review Commission meetings to calling for change alongside other families who have directly been affected by police violence.
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“I go to that store (Uncle Sam’s) most everyday on the way home from work. Folks will come up to me and tell me, ‘Hi, Pedie’s daddy.’ “
— Rick Perez, on visiting the place where his son was killed by a police officer in 2014
Perez said he doesn’t buy into the notion that all police officers are bad, but he does believe those who abuse their power should not be allowed to keep their jobs.
“There’s a whole bunch of them that are good guys,” Perez said. “But you know that saying, ‘One bad apple ruins the entire bunch.’ ”
Not everyone listened to Perez as he tried to dispute what he felt were unfair narratives about his son after he was killed. The Richmond Police Department initially said Pedie Perez was the aggressor and tried to take Jensen’s gun — a detail later disputed by witnesses.
“They tried to say he tried to grab that officer’s weapon when all six witnesses at the scene said he didn’t,” Perez said.
Pedie was intoxicated but unarmed when he was killed, according to findings published in 2018 by Richmond’s Community Police Review Commision. The commission also determined that Jensen had violated the department’s use of force policy by shooting Pedie and not choosing less lethal options.
Former Contra Costa County District Attorney Mark Petersen chose not to bring charges against Jensen, who retired in 2016 due to disability. The county’s current District Attorney, Diane Becton, who was elected four years after Perez’ death, upheld Peterson’s decision to not file charges after reviewing the case in 2019, saying she was unsure she could secure a conviction.
Rick Perez told Richmondside, “I admire (Becton) greatly,” but he doesn’t agree with her decision to not try the case.
Perez acknowledges that his son likely could have handled the confrontation with police differently. He said he also understands that police officers need to make their safety a top priority when responding to a call. But he remains adamant that his son posed no threat to the officer or store patrons, most of whom knew his son.
“The cop didn’t exercise de-escalation tactics, and it went bad,” Perez said.
In the years following his son’s death, Perez connected on Facebook and in person with other families whose relatives were killed by a law enforcement officer. In every scenario, he said, the families experienced what they felt were false media narratives about their loved ones.
“The police always have the media’s attention, and they get the first word,” Perez said.
Pushing for greater transparency about what happened to his son remains a priority for Perez.
He and his wife filed a civil rights lawsuit in 2015 against Jensen, claiming that his use of deadly force was unreasonable. A year later, a settlement for $850,000 was reached between the city and the Perez family that ended the litigation.
Neither the city nor Jensen have ever admitted any wrongdoing.
After settling the lawsuit, Perez thought he would get some answers about Jensen’s work history but soon found a culture of silence surrounding the case.
“We settled immediately because we wanted the truth to come out. We wanted them to come out and quit saying they couldn’t comment on things that were currently under litigation,” he said. “They still had that same mindset that they weren’t going to speak about it.”
After the settlement, Perez joined with organizations advocating for greater police accountability, such as the Oscar Grant Committee, in supporting SB 1421, a state law making it easier for the public to access past police records relating to discipline and incidents involving the misuse of force for officers involved in suspect fatalities. The bill, authored by State Sen. Nancy Skinner, was successfully passed in 2018.
“The Richmond police union was one of the biggest opponents of the whole thing… they were adamant of keeping it from being retroactive,” said Perez. “I was very proud to be a part of that.”
Rick Perez share’s son’s story with Richmond police recruits
When it comes to law enforcement in Richmond, some things have changed in the decade since Pedie Perez’ death. Richmond police now wear body cameras, for example, technology that was not used by the department in 2014. The city has also spent the past few years working to establish a Community Crisis Response Program, in step with a national trend that offers an alternative way of responding to non-violent, non-medical incidents.
The city recently hired the CCRP’s first manager, Michael Romero, and the team he’s building will respond to certain non-emergency calls where the likely solution is services, not a jail cell.
During a May 21 city council meeting, Councilmember Claudia Jimenez mentioned the art-adorned trash receptacles. She said that she believes that if the CCRP had existed 10 years ago that Pedie Perez would still be alive.
Though Perez doesn’t think the team would have made any difference in his son’s situation, he believes that it is an important resource for Richmond residents and police officers.
“It gives the city an alternative,” he said. “You don’t always need an officer having a comply-or-die mentality (with a resident).”
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“One of the things that I told these recruits was that they look very much the same age as my son … when he was murdered by one of their brothers in blue.”
— Rick Perez, father of a man shot to death by police in 2014
After a decade of advocating for families affected by police violence, Perez has also found that more people inside “law enforcement culture” are willing to listen to him discuss his son’s story and his own journey for justice. He shared his son’s story in the inaugural Richmond Police Department cultural competency training in 2023 with newly recruited police officers.
The trainings aim to create trust within the community while acknowledging the department’s past shortcomings, according to Richmond police.
“This training is a crucial step in our journey toward a model of community policing that respects every individual, learns from our history, and moves toward a future where safety
and respect are mutual,” Richmond Police Chief Bisa French said when the training program launched. “The gravity of our historical challenges only strengthens our resolve to transform.”
“(Police officers) can be hardened pretty quickly because there are plenty of bad people in the world who will sour them, but they shouldn’t apply that same template to everybody,” Rick Perez said. “That’s where cultural competency comes into play because all of us have a different culture. We all go home and eat something different at night.”
Perez never expected to get to share his story with a room full of aspiring police officers.
“One of the things that I told these recruits was that they look very much the same age as my son … when he was murdered by one of their brothers in blue,” he said. “They were in that same age group, and I hit that button that related to them.”
Although that was a step in the right direction, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be invited to do it again, Perez feels that more can be done to address law enforcement’s “Us versus them” culture and a criminal justice system that he says protects officers who break the law instead of disciplining them or charging them with a crime.
“It is better than nothing. I’d obviously want more done but anything helps,” he said, of the cultural training, adding that there still is room to improve police accountability and transparency in Richmond. “Obviously they need a whole lot more… What I can do is try to help change the mindset of these cops to not exercise that law enforcement culture against people.”
