People hopping off the ferry into Vallejo are instantly greeted by the city’s appeal — the nearby brewery, the waterfront and marina green, or even Mare Island.
You can add the Bay Area Freedom Project to that list.
The group has gathered each Friday from 5-7 p.m. since July 1 to highlight the trials and tribulations of the embattled Vallejo Police Department.
“Our objective is to inform the community at this hot spot about Vallejo’s violent history with the police department,” volunteer Lana Kay said. “So far the response has been pretty good. There haven’t been very many people causing problems. This group believes in abolition, specifically the removal of officer Jarrett Tonn.”
Tonn killed 22-year-old Sean Monterrosa on June 2, 2020. The officer believed Monterrosa was reaching for a gun in the parking lot of a Walgreens on Redwood Street and fired five shots from an AK-15 rifle from the back seat, killing Monterrosa with a shot to the neck and head. It was later determined that Monterrosa had, in fact, a claw hammer in his sweatshirt pocket.
“People that come off the ferry have mixed responses,” volunteer Perry Manzo said. “There are a lot of people from San Francisco that know about what is going on in Vallejo because they feel it’s similar to what they are dealing with. Then there are a lot of people from out of town that don’t know about the history. Then they ask why it’s been allowed to go on for so long.”
The group’s members take turns speaking over a megaphone, with others handing flyers that include the names and of the 37 officer-involved fatal shootings in Vallejo since 1997 — starting with Charles Lee Davis on Aug. 16, 1997, and ending with Monterrosa.
The flyers also highlight the police department’s 7 percent increase in pay for the 2021-22 fiscal year budget — accounting for about 45 percent of the entire city’s budget.
Sophia Nelson, the founder of the project, along with her brother Jordan, said the group was formed in 2020 shortly after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. At first the Bay Area Freedom Project would protest in front of Vallejo police headquarters on Amador Street, but the group has since moved to the waterfront.
Nelson began doing research in 2020 about the numerous police killings in Vallejo, soon looking into “The Fatal 14” — the Vallejo officers the group says have not faced consequences for shootings. Inside the flyers given out on Friday are the names — and badge numbers — of the 23 officers who allegedly bent their badges in a ritual during the last two decades.
Also in the flyers include a copy of the Notice of Intent to Terminate Tonn written by Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams — which quotes him as saying, “terminating an officer is not an easy thing to do.”
“It made me so mad when I learned about this and found out nobody was doing anything about it,” Nelson said. “Our goal was to apply pressure so we could see change. Time after time it seems things like this happen and then after a while, it goes away. So it was important that we let the police know that this was not going to go away. And we’re not stopping with Tonn. We’re starting with him because there is momentum behind him but after that, we’re going to be asking, ‘Who’s next?'”
Nelson said the group has gone to town halls where Vallejo police denied them an opportunity to speak.
“We came to those meetings and asked, ‘Just give us a chance to speak and we’ll leave afterword,” Nelson said. “But Shawny (Williams) just dismissed us and that’s when we started an impromptu protest.”
Unlike other activist groups, Vallejo Freedom Project — self-proclaimed “abolitionists” — says it wants to eliminate police in the city.
What the group would propose as an alternative for law enforcement isn’t clear.
“We don’t want to even talk to the cops,” Manzo said. “We feel like they are part of what is causing the crimes.”
Manzo believes in “treating the symptoms” and the community providing mental health care at an earlier age.
“Something has to change, something has to be shaken up,” Manzo said. “We try to stay in touch with the impacted families and ask what they want. What does the Monterrosa family want? What does the community want as a whole? Because America in general is just tired of all of this and is frustrated.
“But we’re trying to stay optimistic,” Manzo continued. “I feel that trying to do something is better than just laying down and doing nothing with the conditions getting worse and worse. Sure it can be draining at times, but we need policy changes and we need more people aware of what is going on.”
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Bay Area Freedom Project aims to spread awareness on VPD - Vallejo Times-Herald
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