Weeks of growing tensions among Richmond police officers, residents and elected officials erupted in a shouting match at Tuesday’s city council meeting, leaving no time to discuss a proposal to change how the city communicates with the public about in-custody deaths.
The proposal, by District 5 and 6 council members Sue Wilson and Claudia Jimenez, didn’t come up for a vote after a heated debate lasted more than two hours, running up against the body’s meeting limit. There weren’t enough votes in favor of extending the meeting. (Districts 1, 2 and 4 council members, Jamelia Brown, Cesar Zepeda and Soheila Bana, voted against it.) Typically, to extend a meeting, there must be a super majority “yes” vote of five council members.
The police communications proposal will be continued to next Tuesday’s meeting, according to Jimenez and Wilson.
Dozens of police officers showed up in force at the meeting, dressed in blue RPOA shirts, to call for increased hiring at the understaffed department and to oppose the council members’ effort to increase department transparency in response to two officer-involved shooting deaths of suspects in February and August. The officers were countered by a smaller group that supported the two council members’ proposal.
Family members of Angel Montaño, a 27-year-old who was fatally shot by officers in the Iron Triangle in August, along with criminal justice reform advocates, began yelling at officers who spoke to council members during the open forum session, demanding the reinstatement of their “brothers,” officers Nicholas Remick and Colton Stocking, who shot and killed Montaño.
“If you can do your jobs, follow the law and still be sidelined for political reasons then no officer in this city is safe from unfair treatment,” Officer George McLoughlin said to the council.
“Those two slime balls killed my cousin,” Montaño’s cousin Adrian Maciel yelled out from the audience. “They should be fired.”
According to an RPOA press release, the two officers have been cleared by department psychologists as being fit for duty but have not been reinstated.
Remick was also involved in the fatal shooting of Jose De Jesus Mendez in February after a 30-minute standoff where officers say Mendez charged at them with what looked like a knife. (It was found to be a sheath.) The California Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating both incidents.
Remick was initially reinstated after the fatal shooting of Mendez after two weeks, according to police employment records obtained by Richmondside.
After Maciel interrupted the meeting, a shouting match erupted between officers and a trio of criminal justice reform organizers with Dare to Struggle, a national organization with local chapters, briefly causing the meeting to be stopped for 10 minutes. Some council members, Brown and Bana, called for those who were yelling to be removed from the meeting while Jimenez, Wilson and District 3 council member Doria Robinson stepped down from the dais to talk with Maciel and the Dare to Struggle representatives.
Dare to Struggle members also attended the Aug. 19 city council meeting, chanting “jail killer cops” during the public comment session.
“Right now, what you are doing is not helping,” Robinson told the Dare to Struggle members, before the meeting resumed. “If you want to speak, there’s a process.”
Jesus Pedraza, a childhood friend of Angel Montaño, said via Zoom it was “humorous” that Bana — whose 2022 campaign received a $2,500 donation from the RPOA — was calling for the removal of those disrupting the meeting.
“I’m not against police by any means, I’ve volunteered with the police several times, but it is truly disheartening to see that you all feel like a gang against our people,” Pedraza said. “We are simply trying to bridge a gap, build transparency and accountability, not scapegoating or a political game. If anything, redacting information and footage seems like a political game to me.”
He was referring to an aspect of the proposed communication update that would require the police to only release unedited body camera footage after in-custody deaths or incidents where use-of-force caused serious injuries.
Police department defends its press release and video editing protocols
In a statement released before Tuesday’s meeting, the RPOA called the communications protocol policy “politics” and said Wilson and Jimenez are framing officer-involved incidents in ways that “cast blame on RPD before investigations are complete.”
According to the proposal, the policy would require the city to issue press releases within 24 hours of any “critical incident,” with the press releases acknowledging the incident, explaining investigation processes and providing timelines for public updates and information about support services.
Currently, there is no timeframe in the department’s policy for when a press release must be issued, but Lt. Donald Patchin, spokesperson for the police department, said in the department’s response to the proposal that the department’s goal is to put out a press release “as soon as possible.”
“Our media partners are reaching out to me (during these incidents), wanting updates as well as our community members,” he said. “In general, we start off with a social media post that kind of alerts our media partners, who will reach out at that point, and then we’ll follow up with a press release with the limited information we are allowed to release at that time.”
Patchin, citing the two officer-involved shootings this year as examples, said that the dissemination of information to the public, including body camera footage, depends on the ongoing independent inquires by the California Department of Justice and via the county District Attorney’s Law Enforcement Involved Fatal Incident (LEIFI) protocol.
“One of my jobs is to coordinate with them and determine what information I can release to the public that won’t jeopardize the investigations,” Patchin said. “It takes a couple days for those processes to finish.”
Patchin added that redactions to the video footage, which are done for privacy reasons to be in compliance with state law, can take “many, many hours.” He said that an important part of the public information officer’s role is providing “context” to incidents — such as what leads up to a particular outcome.
According to police officials, family members are offered support services after an officer-involved in-custody death. So far, in 2024 and 2025, the department said it has helped connect 34 adults and 11 children with crime victim support services.
Michelle Milam, the department’s civilian crime prevention manager, told the council that there is a “different pathway” for those families whose loved ones die in custody versus typical crime victim support. She said that crime victims are referred to the district attorney’s office.
“We do not want to do anything to retraumatize the family,” she said, adding that in the aftermath of the Montaño incident, the department contacted the district attorney’s office in early August to see what could be done to support the family. “We felt that was the most trauma-informed strategy instead of the police department initiating that process.”
Police chief says proposed city policy “undermines” her authority
Richmond police Chief Bisa French, who recently announced she’s retiring in January, told the council the department is committed to transparency during critical incidents to dismiss “false narratives.” She also said she was concerned the proposed communications protocol would undermine her authority as chief.
“I am the subject matter expert in my field,” she said. “I’ve been a police officer for 28 years and a chief for six years. These proposals indicate that I cannot be trusted to provide information to the community that I have served for 28 years and the community that I also live in.”
French added that misinformation can spread if the city manager is in charge of issuing a press release about the police and that police departments are the “holders of the facts” for these incidents.
“If there’s an issue about what to include in press releases, I’m open to those suggestions,” she said, adding that she would be open to mentioning the Richmond Community Police Review Commission’s investigation process in future press releases.
Sgt. Alexander Caine, an RPOA board member and one of the defendants alongside Remick in a federal police brutality lawsuit filed by Kewsi Guss, told the council that Remick and Stocking acted “heroically” in the Montaño shooting and that the proposal was another “overreach” by the city council.
“Not only did they do as they were trained but they did it above perfection,” Caine said. “Without their bravery and courage there likely would have been more individuals who lost their lives. I can’t support any of these recommendations.”
Pedraza told the council during his public comment on the proposal that Caine’s remarks were “sickening.”
“The people that are supposed to protect us and feel safe around said it was a ‘heroic’ act to take his life, right? It’s a ‘heroic’ act to cut the footage at the first shot and never once mention how many shots were actually fired,” he said.
Family members of Montaño have told Richmondside that up to 16 shell casings were picked up from the scene.
“You know there’s more to that footage. I know there’s more to that footage. I know the full story. There was no word of how many bullets were shot, how many shells you collected and I don’t even know if you all know that,” Pedraza said to council members and police presenters, specifically calling out French. “Facts are facts and if you are hiding the facts you are only giving what is convenient to you and what is going to make you look a little better in the public eye then that’s also you using your emotion to protect your brotherhood.”
It is important to remember that the police are to serve us, the residents and not us them. They are not here to get guaranteed jobs, be able to run rough shod over us etc.. and god knows shoot us. The facts are clear: in another month it will be a full YTD with 1 murder in Richmond. In 2019 there were 61 murders. Armed police just aren’t needed as they were back then. In fact, they have become a problem not a remedy. The knee jerk “hire more cops” will not lead to a safer city. On the contrary, more cops can make us feel less safe. A supportive city with that treats its’ residents using non violent methods to address crime and treating all residents as if they were their own children will.
I want to thank the members Doria, Claudia, and Sue for calming down those people in the audience that were shouting. Lord knows, I would be upset too, if someone had killed a loved one. Still, the meetings have been going along smoothly until now and I hope they return.
As a member of the teachers’ union although rare I have seen fellow members , who should have been fired staunchly defended by the union. Those teachers get their due process rights. So will officers, but rarely are they brought to justice. Some officers spend 25 years w/o pulling their gun, but one officer here is involved in two fatal shootings in one year. Very suspicious.
Very Suspicious and Disheartening tht residents who may have felt safe at the beginning of this year, are now grieving senseless killings.
Accountability is absolutely essential!!
I recall my uncle, now 79 years old, had a mental health episode during the early 90’s while walking home to South 43rd from 49th @ Cutting, was stopped by police. on Cutting. The South side, at that time, had longstanding neighbors. Had it not been for a few elder neighborhood passerby’s who recognized my uncle and understood what he was facing, Lord know what might have happened. A second time. during 2006, after my grandmother/his mother passed, he was experiencing a mild episode, I calmly called RPD and reported my uncle needed support; I reported it as. a non-emergency call, and provided as much information as possible to dispatch so the officers would not further agitate him. Once officers arrived, I repeated what was relayed to dispatch. They were invited into our home, I then heard a loud “Boom”. I had to intervene because officers rushed into my uncles bedroom and charged at him, slamming him between 2 of his dressers (a tight space, for my uncle and the 3 officers. To this day, if he were still “a walker”, as he always was “known” for around our neighborhood and needed support, I would NOT call RPD.
It was “Beyond Sadden” with not a lick of Accountability offered!!
I personally extend my thoughts, prayers, and condolences to the families affected by this horrible 2025 injustice.
WE NEED TO GET BACK TO knowing, our neighbors, because, unfortunately such acts are only making matters far worse than “deescalation”.
MAY GOD BLESS & PROTECT US ALL!!
*CORRECTION: The encounter was “Beyond Saddening”…….