Vallejo police target encampments for outdated vehicle registration, towing vehicles and RVs

VALLEJO – Vallejo police towed vehicles used as housing without notice at two encampments over the weekend, according to people at the camps and homeless advocates, in an action that the city manager said was “outside of our protocol.”

Vallejo police arrived around 9 a.m. Sunday and began towing vehicles from an encampment on Derr Street at the end of Lemon Street, according to people who had been living there. The people said that officers first walked down the street checking for vehicles with out of date registration, and then five or six tow trucks arrived.

“They told us that we had to leave immediately or we would get towed,” said Benton Mata, who had his RV parked along Derr Street that morning.  

Some residents who were able to start their vehicles moved, but many of the RVs needed repairs. Several residents living out of detached trailers did not have a vehicle immediately on hand to move to another location.

The police towed an RV, an open bed trailer that belonged to a resident of the encampment, and a pick-up truck owned by a man who had arrived that morning to go fishing.

The towings appear to be the second time this weekend that Valljeo police towed vehicles used as housing without notice, as a community member who regularly brings food and other items to encampments across Vallejo reported that on Friday, police towed three RVs without notice from an encampment behind Napoli Pizza on Tennessee Street.

On Saturday, a large fire broke out on a riverboat called the Grand Romance that is moored along the shore next to Derr Street. Several members of the encampment said that they think the fire attracted attention to the camp and that is why the police cleared the vehicles the next day.

Officers told owners of the remaining vehicles and trailers that they would return at 3 p.m. to tow any unregistered vehicles parked along Derr Street, said Ben Clausen, who was living in the RV that the police had towed. According to Clausen, there were eight Vallejo police officers involved in the operation.

Councilmember Cristina Arriola went to the area after a community member notified her that the police were towing vehicles at the encampment.

Arriola called interim police Chief Jason Ta, who said that he was not aware of a vehicle towing operation. Arriola then called City Manager Mike Malone who said, “I was not aware of any plans to tow vehicles, it is outside of our protocol to tow without notice.” He said that he would contact Ta himself and have him ask the watch commander what happened.  

When Arriola mentioned that the members of the encampment reported that there were eight officers present for the operation, Malone said that that was surprising because “there are only three officers on shift.”

The department has been facing a severe staffing shortage and Malone and Ta are currently in talks with the Vallejo Police Officers Association to move to twelve-hour shifts to enable the department to keep patrols staffed with the declining number of officers.

About fifteen minutes later, Malone said that officers had responded to an incident at a nearby liquor store and had gone to the encampment in connection with that call. Malone said that the officers claimed that once they arrived at the encampment they noticed that many of the vehicles were more than 6 months past their registration date and that officers took the opportunity to remove the vehicles because of complaints from city residents about homeless encampments.

“It was not planned,” Malone said, “but they had the opportunity to enforce the vehicle code.”

The California Vehicle Code allows officers to tow vehicles without notice if the registration is more than six months out of date.

Mata and his partner Cetha Sykes said they were living in their RV on Lemon Street since police threatened to tow them from Fifth Street a couple months ago.

“It’s really disruptive, it is a lot of work to pack up and move our things, and it’s stressful trying to find a new spot,” Mata said. “You get to know what to expect from the people you camp with and you build some trust but when there is a sweep like this everybody gets scattered and you may have to go to a place that’s not as safe.”

Sykes said that moving their camp can take two or three days and if Mata misses that much work it makes it hard for them to buy food that month.

Clausen, who works at a Vallejo auto body shop, also said that he will miss two days of work to find a new place to camp.

Charles Damian, who has been living at the encampment for over a year, said that the number of people at the camp has grown in recent months and he was beginning to suspect that something might happen to attract attention.

The closest neighbor to the encampment, Cyprus Gonzalez, operates a shop where he builds custom wood windows. He said that he has provided campers with water and has gotten to know many of them, but as the camp has grown it has gotten to be more than he can handle.

“I don’t want to push anyone out of a bad situation into a worse one but I have a lumber yard here and if that burns up it’s my livelihood,” he said. Gonzales said that an encampment this size needs real city services and resources, not just a few neighbors helping out here and there.

The Vallejo City Council has considered creating a sanctioned site for camping and RVs, but so far has not opened any such area. A planned navigation center to provide resources has been delayed for years and is not expected to open until next year.