ANTIOCH — Five police officers linked to the Antioch Police Department’s racist texting scandal appear to be dodging subpoenas by falsely claiming that they are too injured to testify about the incendiary messages, an attorney claimed in court Friday.
The officers appear to be living it up — attending “pool parties” and “driving tractors” — despite their assertions in sworn documents that they could not appear in court due to “industrial injuries,” attorney Carmela Caramagno told a Contra Costa County judge on Friday.
The allegations came during the first in-depth court airing of the racist text messages — one of a series of scandals plaguing Antioch law enforcement. The contents of the text messages — and the officers’ habit of sending and receiving them with apparent impunity — rests at the core of a challenge the attorneys are making to charges against four men charged with multiple gang-related crimes — two of whom are mentioned in the officers’ texts.
The attorneys contend that the under the state’s Racial Justice Act, all four men — Terryonn Pugh, Trent Allen, Eric Windom and Keyshawn McGee — were unfairly charged, due to racist policing practices within the Antioch Police Department. Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge David Goldstein has already tossed sentencing enhancements against the men, citing the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office’s apparent unfair targeting of Black people in their charging decisions.
Goldstein’s decision on the underlying murder and attempted murder charges is expected after testimony concludes in the current hearing, which will resume August 25.
At least eight officers are expected to be called then to answer for the racist and homophobic texts messages, which were discovered in an ongoing FBI probe of at least a dozen members of the Antioch and Pittsburg police forces.
One of those Antioch officers, Eric Rombough, appeared in court Friday with the expectation of being called to the stand, and remained at the courthouse for most of the day, though he was never asked to testify by the time court adjourned.
The mother of one of the four defendants, Shirelle Cobbs, teared up when describing seeing Rombough in person Friday, questioning why criminal charges have not been filed against him for kicking her son in the head and leaving him hospitalized.
Numerous messages obtained by this newspaper show Rombough boasting about how “I can’t wait to forty all of them,” referring to shooting Black people with 40mm non-lethal rounds. He also repeatedly made racist comments about Black people “swarming to” ice cream “like Hennessy,” “watermelon and kool aid” and commented, “I hate these idiots.” In the most recent batch of texts, he used a gorilla emoji to refer to police Chief Steven Ford, who is Black. Rombough also shared pictures of two men in their hospital beds while bragging about kicking one of their heads like a “field goal.” In one March 2021 text exchange, Rombough told another officer, “Bro, my foot hurts,” adding “Gotta stop kicking n—–s in their head.”
“He should be on the other side, in jail right now,” said Cobbs, the mother of defendant Trent Allen. “There needs to be accountability for the actions that he did.”
Outside the courthouse, nearly a dozen people rallied, chanting “these racist cops have got to go” and waving signs that quoted several of the text messages sent between Antioch police officers over the last few years. Those quotes included an exchange in which an officer boasted about how he “field goal kicked” a suspect’s head, as well as another from an officer who said of Black people: “They all look the same.”
“What’s at stake today is the integrity of our legal system,” said Frank Sterling Jr., a lifelong Antioch resident, through a bullhorn. “There must be zero tolerance for racism and discrimination.”
Standing nearby, Robert Collins, 54, railed against the police department’s “corrupt nature,” calling the racist messages between the officers “so far beyond the pale.” His 30-year-old son, Angelo Quinto, died when four officers restrained him during a mental health call in December 2020.
“This is a much bigger issue than some text messages,” Collins said. “It’s about a culture of bigotry and racism.”
The hearing comes just days after Antioch police Chief Steven Ford announced his retirement, less than a year after he took the job to reform a department plagued by scandal. Ford said his last day would be Aug. 11, after which he planned to pursue “some other opportunities out there, personal and otherwise.”
His arrival came amid the FBI probe into alleged wrongdoing by at least eight Antioch officers, including possible violent civil rights violations and assaults to fraudulent schemes to acquire pay bumps, to drug trafficking, obstruction of justice and weapons violations. His announcement came just days after this news organization obtained another batch of racist text messages among Antioch police officers showing that members of his own department referred to him using an emoji of a gorilla.
On Friday, Goldstein ruled that Ford did not have to testify at the Racial Justice Act hearing, reasoning that Ford did not arrive at the department until after the racist texts were sent.
Sterling said he was “very sad” to see Ford go.
“We were holding out a lot of hope that he was going to turn it around” Sterling said, but added “I can’t blame Chief Ford for leaving.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com