American Canyon officer who shot suspect in Vallejo testified in badge bending hearings

VALLEJO – An American Canyon police officer who shot a suspect in North Vallejo following a pursuit on Thursday afternoon was a former Vallejo police officer who testified in 2022 that a superior bent his badge after a shooting, the Vallejo Sun has learned.

A source with knowledge of the incident identified the officer as former Vallejo police Officer Josh Coleman, who was involved in four shootings in Vallejo before he was hired as a Napa County Sheriff’s deputy in 2018. American Canyon contracts its policing services with the Napa County Sheriff’s Office.

Earlier in the day, the police department highlighted Coleman in his role as American Canyon High School’s school resource officer in a Facebook post. (The post was removed after publication of this article.) A Napa sheriff’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about Coleman’s involvement in the shooting. Coleman recently interviewed for a position as an investigator with the Solano County District Attorney’s Office.

The shooting happened after an officer attempted to pull over a car for a vehicle code violation in the area of state Highway 29 and American Canyon Road at about 3:15 p.m., according to a statement by American Canyon police.

Police then pursued the tan Lexus into Vallejo’s Country Club Crest neighborhood, where the vehicle continued fleeing onto Mini Drive, Corcoran Avenue and Fairgrounds Drive, according to police scanner audio.

Eventually as the pursuit continued on Souza Way, the car’s tire blew near Gateway Drive. Multiple people ran from the vehicle, according to the scanner audio. The car crashed into a fence.

Officers chased after the fleeing occupants. One officer fired his gun, said “shots fired” on the radio and called for medical attention. The officer said that he was not injured. The officer said that the suspect had a gun in his hand.

The shooting is under investigation by the Solano County Major Crime Task Force, which is headed by the Solano County District Attorney's Office.

In a statement on Friday, the DA's office said that the person who was shot is an 18- year-old man who was the front passenger in the vehicle. The man was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive. Police also arrested the driver, according to the DA's office.

The shooting was Coleman’s fifth as a law enforcement officer, far higher than most other officers. According to the Pew Research Center, only 27% of police officers ever fire their guns in the course of their career.

Coleman was implicated in court testimony in 2022 for participating in the Vallejo police badge bending scandal, where officers bent the tips of their badges to mark fatal shootings.  Coleman testified his badge was bent against his will, but a department superior testified that he was more involved than he said and may have even helped spread the practice to other officers.

Coleman refused to be interviewed for an investigation into the badge bending practice commissioned by the city of Vallejo and conducted by former Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano. 

Coleman first joined the Vallejo Police Department in 2003. He testified that his badge was bent by former Vallejo police Lt. Kent Tribble after he, then-Vallejo police Corporal Dustin Joseph, who has since joined the Fairfield Police Department, and Officer Ritzie Tolentino fatally shot William Heinze on March 20, 2013.

Coleman testified that after the shooting, Tribble sent him a text message telling him to come to the Relay Club, a bar across the street from police headquarters, and to bring his badge. 

Coleman said that he was “afraid” of Tribble because of several incidents during his stint in Vallejo police. He said that as a 20-year-old cadet on his first ridealong, Tribble put a gun to his head because he didn’t put his seatbelt on. 

Coleman was involved in another shooting later that year and a third shooting in July 2014. In the third shooting, officers had been responding to a report of a man with a gun in the city’s Country Club Crest neighborhood. When they saw him, Tribble and three other officers chased him, but Coleman shot him from the window of his patrol car.

Tribble “came up to me, grabbed me by my shoulder, started shaking ne in the street, talking and telling me that I ‘Stole his dinner,’” Coleman testified. 

Tribble testified that he also bent Coleman and another officer’s badges after a 2016 shooting outside of a Starbucks. But Coleman denied that happened.

Tribble also  testified that he saw Coleman bend former Officer Zack Jacobsen’s badge after Jacobsen shot and killed Angel Ramos in 2017. According to Tribble, Coleman asked him to meet at the Relay and when he got there, Coleman bent Jacobsen’s badge. 

By then, department superiors had become aware of the practice and told Tribble, who was then a lieutenant, to stop it. “This is another place where I feel like I failed as a leader,” Tribble said. “What I should have done is say we don’t do that anymore."

Coleman said under oath that it was false that he had ever bent anyone’s badge.

Another officer who testified in the badge bending hearings was responsible for the last shooting by an officer in Vallejo, which happened in November. It was the second shooting after a three-year drought since 2020. In November's incident, Vallejo police Corporal Matt Komoda shot and wounded a robbery suspect during a pursuit. 

The shooting was Komoda’s fourth as a Vallejo police officer following shootings in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Komoda testified that Tribble bent his and his partner’s badges following the 2016 shooting, but also claimed that it was against his will and called himself a “victim” of badge bending. 

The judge overseeing the hearings pointed out that Komoda did not report the behavior to department superiors and called the notion that he was a victim “insane.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Solano County District Attorney's Office released Friday.