The Making of a Police Scandal Redux

It happened in San Leandro back in 2011 with Dewayne Stancill. A highly regarded Black police officer forced out because of racism, politics, and corruption. Now, here we are in 2024 having deja vu. Former SLPD Chief Abdul Pridgen has been fired by the city under, to put it mildly, suspicious circumstances without any actual evidence of wrongdoing having been provided with the specter of expensive litigation looming ahead.

I guess I'll weigh in on this with what I know, especially now that Pridgen is officially out. What I have learned is based on information from my own sources, some of whom took great risks to reach out to me, so I can't even share all of what they told me, let alone independently verify all of it. At the same time, because the city is point-blank refusing to release responsive records under the California Public Records Act, despite repeated attempts to get them to do so, even what has been shared publicly is difficult to confirm or deny. So, please, like me, take it with some skepticism. For now.

I'll start with the relevant timeline: September 10, 2023, Pridgen gets a confidential tip from a friend that he should be expecting some bad news at city hall on September 11. No idea what specifically, just that it concerns his own job. It's on that Monday that he is formally placed on paid administrative leave by Robustelli for allegedly violating SLPD policies. He isn't told the specifics of what policies he violated, when, how, why, or whom. The CPRB and the Chief's Advisory Board (CAB) are subsequently told the next day on September 12. They are given no information beyond the press release from the city, leading to further chaos and corruption. Subsequently, things start to leak out over the next weeks of September while interim appointments are made and contingency plans are put in place.

My sources tell me that new (now former) Interim Chief Kevin Hart was picked by Robustelli from a short list provided to her by staff and her own research of those potentially qualified to serve as an interim chief under such short notice -- the list itself is pretty short, as you might imagine for someone like that.

Meanwhile, other sources of mine have advised me that the allegations against Pridgen range from the ridiculous (e.g. domestic violence at home, taking personal calls on occasion outside of the office) to the concerning (e.g. sexual harassment on the job, overly disciplinary, manipulating and taking people's timecards). However, they all came from one source: the department itself through the SLPOA (police officers' union) and SLMA (the union for police command staff). They have vehemently opposed Pridgen's reform efforts, particularly his work to hold bad cops accountable and hire better cops to fill the department's vacancies, even though that was the whole reason he was hired. This particularly includes his decision to try and hire our first Black female lieutenant for a captain position. The POA and PMA believed that they could wait out Pridgen, who they figured would be gone in 6 months or so for another job, possibly Oakland. When that didn't happen, they began this campaign to oust him.

It's still unclear if there was a vote of no-confidence by the POA and/or PMA, but it seems like a definite possibility. This, along with pressure on Robustelli by Mayor Gonzalez, Councilmember Ballew, as well as other more conservative residents in the city's political establishment, seemed to be why she caved and placed him on leave to do the investigation. This whole time Pridgen has maintained his innocence both privately and publicly. He hired an attorney to prepare for likely litigation and to defend his professional reputation. If the investigation found nothing, I was advised that it would likely be over relatively quickly. If it dragged on longer, that meant it likely found something substantial to at least one of the allegations of misconduct. The investigation was over quickly -- about 6 months, which is incredibly fast for such serious complaints. Further, in firing Pridgen, I was told he was given a no-fault release. This means he wasn't fired for cause but simply because the city wanted to.

This is uniquely important and worrying. Without access to the actual investigative report and/or anonymous copies of the complaints, it is incredibly difficult to know what tack to take. Why fire him if he did nothing wrong? It's possible the whole process caused too much negative attention, bad blood, etc., and he would have ultimately been able to continue anyway. Certainly, Pridgen has stated that the way the city chose to handle this made it incredibly damaging to his command. However, the city had to know that if he was fired without cause or a finding of fault, it would face a massive lawsuit for wrongful termination, discrimination, etc., especially given the city's racist history and Pridgen being our first Black police chief. (Not to mention that this kind of bigoted mistreatment has happened to Pridgen before, back when he worked at the Fort Worth police department and was fired for holding bad cops accountable.) If both sides choose to settle, as seems likely, it could easily cost us $2-$3 MILLION. This doesn't count legal fees, investigator fees, the contracts for interim chiefs, etc. (Which is other documentation that the city refuses to provide to so far.)

While I can credit Robustelli with a certain level of savvy and insight based on my direct experience with her, that isn't enough to explain why she allowed this to happen the way it did. My sources told me she didn't even believe the allegations against Pridgen from the start and that she knew this was a tactic to get rid of him for his reform efforts that she herself was also appointed to carry out. Why get rid of a uniquely popular police chief who even managed to get groups normally opposed to the police to support him? Why put her own standing at risk this way? Why undermine her own agenda and authority? Maybe there were concerns about contract negotiations with the POA and/or PMA that could have also been complicated had Pridgen stayed on. Maybe there were worries that certain politicians like Mayor Gonzales and Ballew, and/or their backers, would begin calling for her to be fired. It still doesn't make sense strategically though, because Pridgen went through such a comprehensive vetting process to get community support for his leadership. He was far and away the most popular candidate. His popularity even continued to grow and his reform efforts were well-liked by even the most die-hard types on the CAB.

Other sources have also told me that it is possible the investigation found relatively minor violations of department policies. Not enough to warrant termination for White police chiefs who regularly engaged in them (e.g. Tudor) but maybe enough for a Black police chief who is so unpopular with the POA and PMA.If so, that would be a clear racist double standard.

Regardless, it would be fitting for Robustelli to clap back by bringing on an even bigger reformist as our new interim chief. By all accounts, Angela Averiett has a stellar reputation and the receipts to back it up over the course of her career. However, given how Robustelli handled Pridgen, I'm not ready to give her that much credit yet, especially as she makes her own plans to resign as city manager for a job back in Florida. Hiring a Black woman interim police chief to continue reforming the department doesn't cancel forcing out a Black man permanent police chief who was already reforming the department, particularly in response to such bad faith bigotry from corrupt organizations and individuals.

I have continued to communicate with Pridgen. While he wishes to remain private, for now, I expect we'll be hearing more from him/his attorney soon enough. For my part, I don't believe he did anything egregious but he may have done something technically and accidentally "wrong" enough for the POA/PMA to, figuratively, hang him for it. Indeed, as I said above, it's hard not to draw a parallel between this incident and what happened back in 2011 with Dewayne Stancill.

At the same time, because there is so much unknown (and maybe ultimately unknowable), I have eschewed taking too hard a line in public until now. Still, I refuse to act based solely on rumors, speculation, unverified sources, etc. I want facts and so do the people of San Leandro. We need and deserve them, particularly given the public time and resources being spent on this saga, particularly given the interest and concern for public safety as well as policing. I do believe that what we're seeing is how much control the POA/PMA and their diehard backers have over not just our politics but the very day-to-day business of running this city. And that kind of corrupt control scares me. The only way for us to fight it effectively is with knowledge. To that end, I'm going to continue pushing to get more information from the city. I hope others will do so as well.

Take note and take care.