EPD Looks to Close 'Dark Chapter' 

An outside auditor that reviewed the third-party investigation into the text messaging scandal that rocked the Eureka Police Department in 2021 found the city's response was "appropriate" and held "most involved in the misconduct accountable," noting the department has made strides in changing the culture and policies that enabled this "dark chapter."

"The investigation revealed some troubling cultural issues within the department, with employees openly sharing vulgar and misogynistic views while others stood silent, either out of fear of retaliation if they reported their fellow employees' conduct or the resignation that any reports would be met with supervisors' apathy," concludes the report from OIR Group, the firm the city hired in 2022 to serve as its police auditor. "EPD's new chief has tackled these cultural issues head-on, with new policies and training, realigned supervision and an emphasis on officer wellness."

While the report generally reads as an affirmation that the city handled the scandal appropriately, it also points out deficiencies in the third-party investigation and department disciplinary actions taken based on its findings.

The scandal spilled into public view in March of 2021, when the Sacramento Bee published a story detailing a host of text messages between a group of officers led by Sgt. Rodrigo Reyna-Sanchez over a two-month period in 2020 that the report indicates were leaked to the paper by an officer in the unit. The messages — sent among the unit while officers were on duty — objectified and demeaned women, dehumanized homeless people and joked about their mass murder, praised the use of force against suspects and demeaned fellow employees. While the texts were primarily sent by Reyna-Sanchez and former officer Mark Meftah, three other officers participated in sending vulgar, offensive messages in the thread, and a half-dozen or so others never reported the texts to superiors.

The day the Bee story was published, the city announced it had placed Reyna-Sanchez and Meftah on administrative leave and hired the Bay Area law firm Sacks, Ricketts and Case to conduct an independent investigation. In May, the city announced that now former Capt. Patrick O'Neill had also been placed on administrative leave, pending the findings of an investigation, though it was unclear at the time if it was related to the text messaging investigation. The OIR Group report makes clear it was, though it doesn't name O'Neill.

"On May 17, 2021, EPD publicly reported that they had placed a member of its command staff on administrative leave but did not report why," the report states. "The investigation later revealed that a witness employee — who had been interviewed as part of the third-party investigation — reported that this person had sent her unwelcomed texts of a sexual nature and that he retaliated against her when she refused his advances."

Ultimately, the Sacks, Ricketts and Case investigation would interview 20 people and review more than 1,500 pages of documents, according to the OIR Group report, sustaining allegations against three employees — Meftah, Reyna-Sanchez and O'Neill — for harassment and retaliation. (Meftah, the report notes, had already been fired at this point for "an unrelated allegation of violation of policy.")

But OIR Group's report noted that the investigation failed to "explicitly frame all allegations where they were clearly warranted," noting the investigation did not identify the misconduct of two other employees who "actively participated in the inappropriate conversation in the group chat."

One of these officers, the report states, sent a text that discussed a state COVID-19 order in a "profane and insulting way and another that sexualized a fellow EPD member," while the other's "troubling texts deal with additional comments about EPD members that were misogynistic and another that was racially insensitive in nature." Remarkably, the report notes, the second employee was not even interviewed as a part of the outside investigation.

Nonetheless, the report notes that then Chief Steve Watson noted the deficiencies in the investigation and took some steps to address them, adding "formal allegations" against one of the employees. But when it came to the second employee, according to the report, Watson opted to give them "informal counseling" rather than formal allegations of misconduct.

"However, a review of the available evidence showed that the second employee's text messages were deeply concerning, misogynist, racially charged and hurtful to the colleagues that were referenced and certainly deserving of more formal accountability," OIR Group's review states. "While EPD overall did an admirable job of resolving the incident and holding most involved in the misconduct accountable, there was both an investigative and accountability breakdown regarding the fifth involved employee."

The report notes that while facing termination by the department, both O'Neill and Reynza-Sanchez abruptly retired.

Much of OIR Group's report focuses on the steps Todd Jarvis, who stepped in as EPD's interim chief in January of 2021 and was given the full title in September of that year, has taken to improve EPD's culture, oversight and policies since taking over.

First, the report notes Jarvis promoted five employees to the rank of sergeant to provide better supervision of patrol operations, saying he did so because he felt a lack of a direct supervisor "may have contributed to a situation in which EPD employees believed they could text inappropriate comments about the public and their own members with impunity."

Jarvis also implemented a number of policy changes, most notably those governing the use of personal phones on duty and an officer's duty to report misconduct.

EPD policy had previously allowed on-duty officers to communicate through personal cell phones, which the report notes made monitoring efforts nearly impossible and erroneously led some officers to believe they had an expectation of privacy when texting about work matters. The new policy prohibits the use of personal phones to conduct on-duty business, except in exigent circumstances.

During a recent meeting of the Community Oversight on Police Practices Board meeting at which the OIR Group reported its findings, Jarvis noted that in addition to the new policy, the city has equipped all EPD field personnel with city-issued cell phones, which gives the department "a much wider opportunity to monitor" their communications.

Jarvis also said that in reviewing the texting investigation in his first days on the job, he "noted really quickly" that EPD didn't have an official misconduct reporting policy. Jarvis said he's now implemented one.

"We didn't have one that said, 'If you see someone here doing something that's illegal, immoral or unethical that is going to reflect negatively on the city and the department, it's your duty to report it,'" Jarvis told the board. "That takes a lot off the individual. You're no longer the rat who's talking about something bad happening, it's your responsibility and the expectation of leadership that you are going to do something."

The report also notes that EPD has taken steps to improve employee wellness, mandating annual counseling sessions for each employee while offering fully covered follow-up sessions as needed on a voluntary basis. It also continues to provide mandated annual trainings on workplace harassment, sexual harassment and bias.

Speaking to the oversight board, Jarvis said he appreciated OIR Group's review of the texting investigation. But he noted that "there are people who made mistakes and no longer have careers because of that" and that "these are human lives that are altered forevermore," saying he was reluctant to "drag everything through the mud again." But Jarvis also said a lot of work has gone into preventing a recurrence of a situation that "completely embarrassed" every single member of his department.

"We have really worked hard to change the culture to one of accountability, one of higher expectations, one where we don't ever want to see this again," he said.

Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal's news editor. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, extension 321, or [email protected].