An FBI probe into the conduct of officers in a Northern California precinct has yielded multiple indictments. The investigation, which was launched 18 months ago, examined police use of force, text messages, and complaints from the community.
On Friday (Aug. 18), the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California announced that four indictments charging 10 current and former officers and employees of Antioch and Pittsburg were returned by a federal grand jury in San Francisco.
Antioch officers Morteza Amiri, Eric Rombough, and Devon Wenger were each charged with conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under color of law, and destruction/falsification of records in federal investigations. Details of their alleged behavior include communicating about their intentions to use excessive force against citizens, unnecessarily deploying K-9s, and other “less lethal” violent acts. The 29-page indictment also states that photos of injured suspects were exchanged via text with messages such as “Yeah buddy, good boy pursy” and “F**k that turd.”
As previously reported by REVOLT in May, more than a dozen Antioch officers were identified in the FBI’s investigation into a string of racist texts that dated back to 2019. The messages were described as abhorrent and reprehensible and that they revealed an “entrenched culture of hatred, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and violence” throughout the department. Later that month, a civil lawsuit was filed against the precinct on behalf of five residents and a family member of a man who was fatally shot by an officer.
Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe addressed the grand jury’s decisions in a press conference. “To those that have accused me and others of being anti-police for seeking to reform the Antioch Police Department, today’s arrests are demonstrative of the issues that have plagued the Antioch Police Department for decades,” said Thopre, according to NBC Bay Area.
Amiri is also one of five officers named in a college fund fraud indictment, which includes charges for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. Wegner is one of two named in a steroid distribution indictment, which includes conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute anabolic steroids, attempted possession with intent to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, and destruction, alteration, and falsification of records in federal investigations. A fourth obstruction indictment lists one officer, Timothy Manly Williams, along with deprivation of rights, obstruction of official proceedings, and the alteration, and falsification of records in federal investigations.