One of the two Richmond police officers who shot to death 27-year-old Angel Montano Monday was also involved in the fatal shooting of another suspect just six months ago.
According to documents obtained by Richmondside, Richmond police officers Nicholas Remick and Colton Stocking shot and killed Montano, a Marine according to family members, as they responded to reports that he was armed with a knife and threatening to kill people at a Richmond home. Remick was one of two officers involved in the fatal shooting of 51-year-old Jose De Jesus Mendez on Feb. 4, alongside officer Jessica Khalil. Both were put on leave after the shooting.
When asked for comment on why Remick was back on duty before the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office had released its investigation of the February shooting, a Richmond police spokesperson said they were not “releasing the names of the officers at this time.”
In a KTVU report, Richmond police Chief Bisa French, who was attending the National Night Out event kickoff in Point Richmond, said the officers who shot Montano had “less than five years on the force.” French also told the KTVU reporter that the department would be releasing the bodycam footage “in a day or two.”
According to the department’s Facebook posts, Stocking joined the department in May of 2023 while Remick joined the force in January of 2023.
According to a Richmond police Facebook post, Remick is from Citrus Heights and is the third generation in his family to serve in law enforcement. He was a competitive rower and a graduate of Butte College Police Academy.
It is unclear when Remick was reinstated following February’s fatal shooting of Mendez, and Richmond police did not return requests for that information by publication time. Currently, the California Department of Justice, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, the Richmond Police Department Office of Professional Accountability, which handles the department’s internal investigations, and the city’s Community Police Review Commission are investigating the February shooting.
Richmondside reached out to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office about Monday’s shooting but was told the office was “limited” in what it could share.
“Once our investigation has concluded, we will issue a public report on our findings,” spokesperson Ted Asregadoo said in an email.
Mendez was shot after a 30-minute standoff on the railroad tracks near Carlson Boulevard. Richmond police said in a news release at that time that Mendez charged at officers with something they thought was a knife. It was later identified as a knife sheath.
Mendez was reportedly wanted on domestic violence charges and was living at a nearby homeless encampment just blocks from his estranged family. Friends of Mendez at the encampment told Richmondside that the 51-year-old knew he was not supposed to be living near his family.
Transcripts from radio dispatch audio from the shooting reviewed by Richmondside showed that the officers appeared to have pursued Mendez for about 45 minutes in the dark, crawling through fencing and tramping through rain-soaked grass on railroad property bordered by businesses and homeless encampments along the tracks running parallel to Carlson Boulevard near the Pullman Avenue apartments.
Officers could be heard juggling the diverting of road traffic, stopping trains and calling for shields to be brought in after they reported seeing Mendez holding what they thought was a knife.
Subsequently, Remick and Khalil were identified in April by the state DOJ as the two who shot him.
According to federal court records, Remick is currently named in two police brutality lawsuits, both of which were filed within the last year. One of those lawsuits involved a May 2024 altercation between Remick, Richmond police Sgt. Alexander Caine and Richmond cowboy Kwesi Guss, who was injured, he said, when police knocked him down and handcuffed him as he filmed the end of a police chase.
Curious to know how your organization obtained the officers’ names, as that information has not yet been made public. Can you clarify the source?
This piece follows a familiar pattern — consistent with the framing seen across your parent organization’s outlets — which often adopt a critical stance toward law enforcement, regardless of context or evidence. In this case, there is a serious lack of publicly available facts, yet your reporting draws strong implications. Why?
No body-worn camera footage has been released from Monday’s incident involving Angel Montano, and no full investigation has been conducted or concluded. Without those foundational elements, it’s difficult to understand how such a definitive narrative — and an implication of officer misconduct — can be responsibly presented.
The same holds true for the Mendez and Guss cases. Those investigations remain ongoing and are not publicly available, yet your article frames Officers Remick, Stocking, Khalil, and Caine as clearly in the wrong in all three instances.
For clarity:
> In Montano’s case, where the individual was reportedly armed with two knives, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is responsible for the investigation.
> In contrast, Mendez was later determined to be unarmed (holding a knife sheath, not a knife), thereby triggering a California DOJ investigation under AB 1506.
The distinction matters.
When an officer is cleared to return to duty, it generally reflects an internal finding that the officer acted within department policy and use-of-force protocols — not necessarily that no criminal charges will be filed. That’s a separate question, handled under a much higher legal standard: whether there is sufficient evidence to prove a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Your reporting fails to distinguish between these important processes. Instead, it advances assumptions and conclusions that are not supported by public evidence. That bias is on full display.
Is it fair — or ethical — for reporting to work so hard to shape public opinion before the facts are known, especially when reputations and careers are at stake?
Why are you and other Cityside reporters so quick to imply officer guilt — often without evidence — while extending benefit of the doubt exclusively to the subject or victim? Why not attempt to consider what it would be like to be in the shoes of all involved, including the officers — especially when suspects may be armed, have violent histories, or pose imminent threats?
Perhaps what’s overdue is not another article based on incomplete or selectively presented information, but some self-reflection on how you approach these stories — and whether you’re committed to informing the public or simply reinforcing a narrative with a click-bait headline based on information obtained through an unapproved source?
If past practice is any indication, Richmondside will likely decline to publish this comment — avoiding legitimate critique in favor of narrative control. So the question stands: is there space for accountability in your journalism, or just selective outrage?
Wow. Yet another headline crafted for outrage clicks by a so-called news outlet that’s made its anti-law enforcement bias crystal clear. Cityside journalism isn’t about facts or neutrality; it’s about driving a narrative and rushing to “accuse” officers of misconduct before any independent investigation even begins. Bravo!
This outlet has no interest in balanced reporting. You pander to the loudest fringe voices and stoke public distrust. So don’t even feign to act surprised when people call out your credibility. You’re not just complicit — you are the problem!
And heaven forbid any of you ever need police to protect your life or safety. Even then, you’d likely turn around and drag them through the mud, trashing their reputations and careers in the process just because that is your mission.
how was this officer allowed to be in our streets. this is a complete failure by richmond police department.
Your own reporting policy and this coverage make your anti-police bias unmistakable. They convey the belief that you — not the justice system — should serve as judge, jury, and executioner for law enforcement officers.
Do you believe that officers — who risk their lives daily to protect the public, including you — are not entitled to the same presumption of innocence you routinely extend to criminal suspects? By your own policy’s definition, these officers are also “suspects” until proven otherwise. So why publish their names?
The principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is embedded in the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee due process and a fair trial. That process is not conducted by the press — Cityside or otherwise — nor by anti-police groups such as Reimagine Richmond or the Richmond Progressive Alliance.
By releasing the names of these two officers, you have crossed a serious ethical and legal line. This disclosure constitutes a breach of confidential information and a violation of the Police Officer Bill of Rights. In doing so, you have demonstrated a willingness not only to disregard the legal and ethical safeguards surrounding personnel matters, but to celebrate that breach in pursuit of a biased narrative — one that undermines both journalistic integrity and basic ethics.
In the February Mendez-Rios incident, Officer Remick was cleared to return to duty following a fitness-for-duty evaluation and an administrative investigation that determined his actions complied with departmental policy and use-of-force protocols. Officer Khalil, who also discharged her weapon in that incident, was likewise cleared. You chose not to include that fact because it did not fit your narrative.
The CA DOJ is still conducting its independent criminal investigation to determine whether the officers’ actions were lawful. Only then will a decision be made on whether criminal prosecution is warranted and whether there is sufficient evidence to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Your article also reveals either a lack of understanding or a deliberate misrepresentation of investigative jurisdiction. Which agency takes the lead depends on specific factors, including whether a civilian was armed. This is basic, verifiable information, yet your reporting ignores or distorts it.
Regarding the Montano incident, a second officer — whose name has not been released through proper channels — also discharged their weapon. Yet you focus solely on Officer Remick because he was involved in both incidents.
This framing is misleading. These are entirely independent events; they are not statistically linked or “stackable” to suggest wrongdoing.
And in both cases, two officers discharged their weapons and shot the civilians. Yet you intentionally want readers to focus on only Officer Remick and to not view each incident independently.
Consider this analogy: you proceed through a green light and are struck by a driver who ran a red. Evidence — including witness statements, dashboard cameras and/or traffic cameras — confirms you acted lawfully. If months later, at a different intersection, the same thing happens, you are not automatically guilty of wrongdoing simply because you were involved in both accidents.
THEY ARE INDEPENDENT EVENTS, JUDGED ON THEIR OWN FACTS.
Will you publish a retraction — or at minimum, a correction acknowledging these facts? Or will you continue down the path of agenda-driven reporting, intent on smearing an officer’s name while one investigation remains incomplete and the other has barely begun?
If you value fairness, transparency, or accountability, do a ride-along with officers. Attend the training police commissioners receive. Learn the reality of making split-second, life-or-death decisions within policy and the law.
Instead, you promote inflammatory narratives and solicit donations from your readers while proudly telling them you are “not neutral”. You claim journalistic integrity while actively undermining it. This latest headline isn’t just irresponsible — it’s reckless, and it damages not only the reputations and careers of the officers involved, but the very credibility of your profession.
You are giving the officers Full names and the cities they live in? WTH. So how about you go patrol the streets of Richmond
It’s not especially reassuring that officers get this upset over the public knowing which of you killed which of us.
If an article about one officer with the same body count as the entire city this year is that big of a threat then maybe it’s time to find work that doesn’t include the authority to use lethal force against others.
@Richmond Resident – Please don’t assume that some of these comments are coming from officers. I am not an officer nor have I ever been.
Are you a member of Reimagine Richmond or the Richmond Progressive Alliance?
Or should I just assume that you are, the same way you are assuming that any member of the public who expects journalists and editors to remain neutral and not violate the law must be officers?
It seems that you believe everyone BUT officers should be innocent until proven guilty, with you acting as judge, jury and executioner in the absence of any investigations.
Is that your definition of due process? Are officers not human like you?
Each incident is independent and each must be evaluated as such and based on their own unique circumstances and facts.
I am not a police officer so yet another bad assumption on your part.
Do you understand that these two shootings are completely independent events with unique circumstances?
I hope you’ll watch RPD’s press conference (https://youtu.be/FSgadKzWReI) and the released video (https://youtu.be/117GCj1UNi4) with an open mind.
You might actually see that RPD appears to follow lawful protocol in both shootings, and Officer Remick is not the horrible person or officer that Richmondside and KQED unfairly painted using click bait headlines.
They both should issue retractions of those reports. I highly doubt that will ever happen since they had no problem violating journalistic ethics and the law by illegally publishing the officers’ names before they were released by the appropriate authority. They obtained the names from an unethical individual(s) who clearly had an ulterior motive.
Two people, two mental health crises, two lives that could have been saved if we had been allowed to move forward with crisis response. If crisis response was the response vs. the police. I am heartbroken over the lost of another man in our community who needed support, compassion and care. He should not have been gunned down. We need helpers in our community, not killers.