Former Vallejo police chief describes threats that led to his resignation

VALLEJO – Weeks before he resigned in 2022, former Vallejo police Chief Shawny Williams received a Halloween card. Williams testified that when his secretary opened it, the audio card emitted a loud screeching sound, which was so loud that Williams, who was in a meeting with then-Capt. Drew Ramsay at the time, thought there may be a domestic violence incident happening outside the station.

The audio wouldn’t stop until the battery ran out, and Williams said that there was paint inside that would explode if it was disabled. “Quit today” and “worst boss ever” were written on the card, Williams testified.

The card was one of a string of threats and harassment that Williams said drove him from the Vallejo Police Department. He also described receiving threatening letters at his home address, at a property out of state, and via email. And he said that he had interactions with the city attorney’s office that he considered threatening. 

Williams resigned in November 2022 and received a $408,000 severance package which prevented him from speaking publicly about his employment with the city for two years. He had been hired in 2019 with a mission to reform the department after a series of high-profile incidents involving Vallejo police, including the fatal shooting of Willie McCoy earlier that year.

But he frequently faced opposition from the police union, the Vallejo Police Officers Association, who blamed Williams for a failure to recruit and retain officers and took a vote of no confidence in Williams’ leadership in July 2022.

Williams described the threats in a deposition in a civil rights lawsuit brought by McCoy’s niece, Deyana Jenkins. Jenkins was pulled over three months after McCoy was killed by two of the officers who killed him. They held her at gunpoint, dragged her out of the car, threw her on the ground and Tased her, according to the lawsuit. She was never charged with a crime.

Jenkins’ attorney, civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, has uncovered extensive evidence in the Jenkins case, including testimony by police recruiters hired by Williams who described threats and harassment directed at them. But the city delayed any deposition of Williams, who eventually retained his own attorney and was finally deposed late last month.

“There was racial animus,” Williams testified, “retaliatory things that were happening that just made it unbearable or impossible for me to perform my duties in a safe environment.”

Williams described racial comments coming from then-police union President Lt. Michael Nichelini and Sgt. Rob Greenberg, who was disciplined for referring to Williams as “Black Jesus.”

Williams said that he received between a half-dozen and a dozen threats from anonymous email accounts which began in 2021, around the time he issued a notice of intent to fire police Detective Jarrett Tonn for the fatal shooting of Sean Monterrosa in 2020.

“They were hostile, toxic. I mean, they related to various – my performance or various things that were going on with the police department,” he said.

Williams testified that he reported the threats to city leaders and formally asked for them to be investigated, but to his knowledge no investigation was ever conducted. In fact, about 10 or 11 months before he left, he said he had a conversation with the city attorney’s office that he considered to be a threat toward him.

Williams said he also discussed the threats with then-City Manager Mike Malone, who told him over half a dozen times, "They're not going to stop until I fire you or you quit."

After Williams resigned, he said that he continued to receive threatening communications, including letters mailed to his home and to a rental property out of state.

In 2023, an arbitrator overturned Williams’ decision to fire Tonn and ordered him reinstated. Williams testified that a letter sent to his home referred to that decision, and “threatened some bad things were coming my way” and made other disparaging or obscene comments. He said it also said, "Wait til PORAC gets ahold of this,” referring to the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a statewide association of police officers.

Tonn was promoted to sergeant earlier this year.

Williams said that a second letter was received by tenants of his out of state property, who told him that the letter had “obscenities and some other comments about the idea that I had hurt or destroyed the department or something to that effect.”

Williams also testified that he felt he was intimidated while preparing for the deposition by Assistant City Attorney Katelyn Knight, who was on the call during the deposition. Knight stopped any further testimony of that allegation or any threats from the city attorney’s office, claiming it was protected by attorney-client privilege. Williams’ current attorney did not object to him answering.

Nold sought the intervention of a judge to proceed with the testimony, but they did not receive a response during the deposition. Nold is now trying to schedule a second deposition, but in a joint dispute letter, the city again argued that any such communications were protected. 

“It is difficult for the city to address Williams’ mischaracterization of the discussion as a threat without waiving the privilege by disclosing the substance of the confidential communications,” city officials wrote. “There was no threat. There was certainly no attempt to prevent or dissuade Williams from testifying or to influence, delay or alter Williams’ testimony.”