VALLEJO (KCBS RADIO) – The much-maligned Vallejo Police Department is under scrutiny once again, this time after a new investigation by the Vallejo Sun revealed that several officers have had their badges either replaced or repaired after being bent.
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Badge bending is a notorious practice that the department began doing in 2003, according to previous reporting by the Sun, after officers participated in shootings.
After a shooting – not necessarily a fatal one – the officer would bend one of the tips of their badges, and would do so again if involved in another shooting.
The practice was brought over by former Lt. Michael Kent Tribble from the Concord Police Department when he transferred to Vallejo. He testified it was a way to make officers feel better after a shooting, according to the paper..
While evidence of the practice only came to light two years ago, officers have been going to get their bent badges replaced or fixed for quite some time, according to the Sun's new investigation.
The company that the officers used, Berkeley-based Ed Jones Co., would fix the badges, or replace the sterling silver badges with cheaper chrome versions, according to the outlet. Many of those being fixed or replaced could be related to shootings.
Most of the officers would then bill the police department for the service, the outlet reported.
Of the 1,200 pages of documentation obtained by the Sun going back as far as 2011, there have been 12 orders, out of hundreds, for the chrome replacements paid for by the department. Of those 12, eight had been for officers that had participated in a shooting. At least one more was purchased individually, according to the outlet.
While an internal investigation of the department was conducted by former Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano after the revelations about badge bending came to light in 2020, the outlet reported it did not include the activities of Ed Jones Co.
His 150-page report was completed last September but it has still not been made public by the city.
And, according to the outlet, none of that report contains invoices or other relevant information between the badge company and the police department, just individual records on the officers buying badges.
Giordano focused his investigation on invidual officers, interviewing many that allegedly were unwilling participants in the badge-bending ritual and straightened their badges out on their own.
His investigation has been harshly criticized by Deputy Solano County Public Defender Nick Filloy, who has questioned him about the decision not to pursue invoices from the badge-maker, according to the outlet.
Giordano's report was further blasted by Solano County Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Healy after he testified in March. The Sun reported that Healy accused him of relying on department "gossip" and not fulfilling the investigation's purpose of illuminating issues within the department.
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