Open Vallejo (https://openvallejo.org/tag/jason-ta/)
Police unions in Seattle and Vallejo successfully advocated ending their departments’ body-camera analysis programs after the software allegedly risked surfacing problematic officer behavior.
The city of Vallejo has released three body camera videos from the June 27 nonfatal shooting of Jamazea Deyon Kittell, but as of Thursday afternoon had withheld other footage that could shed additional light on the incident, according to witnesses who spoke with Open Vallejo.
Open Vallejo has obtained preliminary video of the June 27 shooting of Jamazea Kittell by Vallejo police Ofc. Brad Kim.
Today marked the first public appearance of a man shot in the face by Vallejo police following what authorities say was a botched gas station burglary on June 27.
With stitches protruding from the entry wound below his nose, and a large bandage covering his throat, Jamazea Kittell managed a slight smile toward his loved ones as a sheriff’s deputy wheeled him into the courtroom. Kittell’s family had been unable to see him since the shooting, his mother, Tonisha Lofton, told Open Vallejo. During the brief hearing, Judge John B. Ellis continued Kittell’s arraignment to July 25, assigning the case to Judge Robert Bowers in Vallejo. Kittell faces charges of attempted murder on a peace officer, commercial burglary, and possession of a stolen vehicle.
Open Vallejo first named Ofc. Brad Kim as the officer who shot Kittell near the scene of an alleged burglary in the early morning of June 27.
“By canceling they essentially ceded to union pressure. And by doing that, they’ve gone back to status quo, which is to review practically none of it,” the company’s CEO said about the city’s body camera videos.
Kim joined the Vallejo Police Department in 2018 and had not previously been in a shooting while employed with the agency, public records show.
The Vallejo Police Department has prepared an update on California Department of Justice reforms it plans to present at a special City Council meeting tonight. But one notable stakeholder was left out of the department’s assessment — the DOJ.
The Vallejo Police Department is hiring a new deputy chief, promoting multiple officers to the upper echelons of its command staff, and disbanding two key programs — all while the police chief is expected to be out of the office for weeks, Open Vallejo has confirmed.
Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams was notified in March that his second-in-command had been drinking before he showed up to a homicide scene in a department SUV, according to an internal memo obtained by Open Vallejo. Now, sources say the city has opened an outside investigation — which the chief says he knows nothing about.