Shawny Williams, who tried to reform Vallejo police department, says threats to his safety led him to resign
The embattled former police chief of Vallejo, a San Francisco Bay Area city that has attracted national attention over police violence, has said that he endured a steady procession of racist remarks from colleagues and online harassment and threats that ultimately led him to resign.
By the time Chief Shawny Williams tendered his resignation in 2022, he said he had received a slew of threats – at his office, at his home, and in his email inbox. Most demanded he step down. But even after resigning, the threats still came by mail to his home and a second property he owned outside the state.
“They were hostile, toxic,” Williams testified in a deposition on Wednesday. “I had safety concerns.”
The police can’t be reformed. Must burn it all down and start over.
Yeah, if the police chief can’t check racism within the department, against himself, I think it’s pretty cut and dry. Not that I was questioning it before this, but it’s a tidy example.
… Williams describes as a pattern of hostile, threatening and retaliatory behavior that ended his brief attempt to impose accountability on a department known nationally for unchecked violence and resistance to reform.
