02 Jun Richmond Police Commission to Get New Investigator

“I cannot ignore the ethical red flags raised by an attorney whose sole job was to ensure the integrity of CPRC investigations,” said Richmond City Council member Soheila Bana, seen May 20, referring to previous Community Police Review Commission investigator Jerry Threet. “If we ignore this warning, we not only risk credibility, we risk legal liability.” (Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

The Richmond City Council approved a $50,000 contract on May 27 with a firm that will serve as an interim investigator for the Community Police Review Commission, months after the previous investigator resigned. 

Since Jerry Threet resigned in September, 17 complaints have been filed with the CPRC and uninvestigated, the City Attorney’s office said in its report. Another nine were not investigated before Threet’s departure. 

Bill Whalen and Associates will conduct confidential investigations for the commission until a permanent investigator is found. The firm’s contract ends Jan. 30, 2026. 

Whalen is a former police chief for the El Segundo Police Department, who has more than 30 years of law enforcement experience. 

Threet’s resignation

In his September resignation letter, Threet said that CPRC commissioners had not been objective in their roles on the commission.

A proposal by council members Soheila Bana and Jamelia Brown to launch an investigation into the allegations of unethical conduct and biases of commissioners was rejected at the May 20 meeting. 

The proposal, which was rejected in a 3-4 vote, came several months after Threet made the allegations. 

But opposing council members felt the allegations were not enough to warrant an investigation, and that the timing was meant to stop the commission from operating. 

“(Bana) is doing this right now as the (CPRC) policy recommendations are coming to the council,” said council member Claudia Jimenez. “I’m a little concerned that this is the way council member Bana is acting to shut down a commission because it’s proposing things.” 

CPRC has proposed more than a dozen policies, including more commissioner training, hiring a permanent investigator, an extended timeframe for residents to file complaints and increased authority that would allow the commission to investigate firearm-, canine- and taser-related incidents. 

The proposal voted on at the May 20 meeting was revised to allow the commission to continue working while it was being investigated.

Bana said her concerns were not with the police reform policies, saying the CPRC is vital and that the proposal was “not to turn down oversight, but to strengthen it.” 

“I cannot ignore the ethical red flags raised by an attorney whose sole job was to ensure the integrity of CPRC investigations,” she said, referring to Threet. “If we ignore this warning, we not only risk credibility, we risk legal liability.” 

Jimenez said that Threet, who was living in Canada, already had plans to leave as the commission’s investigator before making the allegations in the letter. 

Allegations directed beyond commission

At the May 6 meeting, Bana, Brown and Vice Mayor Cesar Zepeda successfully blocked Mayor Eduardo Martinez’s appointments to a temporary committee that would have reviewed CPRC’s proposed policies before coming to the council.  (Council member Doria Robinson, whose vote helped block the investigation into alleged commissioner behavior, was absent at the meeting.)

The opposition to that ad-hoc committee was due to perceived conflicts of interest among appointees, council members Jimenez and Sue Wilson. Jimenez is the council liaison to the commission, whose former 2024 election campaign manager is chair of the commission, Carmen Martinez. Wilson’s husband, Daniel Lawson, is a commissioner, and Martinez also worked on her 2024 election campaign.

The appointments, which were on the consent calendar before being pulled by Bana, would have also included Mayor Martinez, Police Chief Bisa French and a representative from the commission.

The conflict of interest concerns from Bana led her to call for Jimenez and Wilson to recuse themselves from the May 20 vote. 

City Attorney Dave Aleshire said at the meeting that the two did not have to recuse themselves. In Wilson’s case, Aleshire said that was because the nepotism policy allowed family members of council members already serving on commissions to serve out their term before having to step down. Lawson was appointed before Wilson took office. 

For Jimenez, Aleshire said, accusing her of bias for agreeing with recommendations while a liaison would “obviate the council liaison system.” 

“I think the members are participating consistent with council rules and procedures,” he said. “None of these matters involve a financial conflict of interest.” 

Bana — and those who backed the investigation — pushed back on that, saying that the perception of a conflict of interest should have been enough for Jimenez and Wilson to recuse themselves. 

“(Reimagine Richmond) evolved alongside the now-defunct Reimagining Public Safety Community Task Force (RPSCTF), formed by (Richmond Progressive Alliance)-aligned Councilmembers in 2020 to defund RPD and promote anti-police policy agendas,” a group called Richmond Taxpayers wrote to the council.“RR and the RPA maintain a coordinated strategy … This mutual dependency creates both a political and financial incentive structure that undermines the impartiality expected of CPRC members and elected officials.”

RPA-affiliated council members, who held the majority until the November election, have been the target of criticism for policies that have steered funding from the police department to alternative public safety strategies. Mayor Martinez, Jimenez, Wilson and Carmen Martinez are members of the RPA. 

Some commission members, Marisol Cantu and Martinez, are also members of Reimagine Richmond, which is a local group that advocates for reforms in public safety. 

Sgt. Alex Caine, one of the Richmond Police Officers Association’s members who spoke on behalf of the union alongside other members and was named in a lawsuit last year for striking a Black cowboy who was filming an arrest of someone else, said the investigation would rebuild the public’s confidence in the commission. 

“The RPOA supports oversight, but it must be fair, unbiased and rooted in facts,” he told the council. “This is not anti-oversight, this is pro-integrity and pro-accountability.” 

But most speakers during the May 20 public comment opposed the investigation. 

Cantu, who is also an RPA member, told the council that she was not opposed to transparency and accountability. 

“Investigations should not be used to stall progress, silence oversight, or undermine the voices of those who step up to serve on this commission,” she said in an email to the council ahead of the meeting. “We commissioners are community members too. We show up, we listen to families, we dig through case files, we deliberate thoughtfully, and we make recommendations to help this city heal and move forward. We deserve your support, not suspicion.”

Cantu and other investigation opponents said the commission was already acting on Threet’s recommendations that commissioners receive training. 

“Some of these (CPRC) recommendations actually came as a response to Mr. Threet’s letter to address some of the lack of training,” said Jimenez, who proposed formally voting on training for commissioners at the meeting. 

Aleshire said training was “high-priority,” but not on the agenda and could not be voted on. Aleshire said the commission’s training recommendations could be brought back at a future meeting.