Staffing, Mental Health, Surveillance Tech Are Top of Mind for Richmond Police’s New Chief

When Timothy Simmons began his law enforcement career at the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office 17 years ago, he knew he wanted to stay rooted in his hometown communities.

Originally from Vallejo, Simmons said the hallmarks of his childhood — soccer games and hangouts at the mall — took place just as much in Richmond, a city that has dealt with a history of high crime rates and headlines driven largely by the Chevron refinery.

“Now not only have I adopted the city of Richmond as a second home, I actually have family members who live in this community, and that’s really informed a lot of my ideology and my philosophy,” said Simmons, who officially assumes the role of the department’s new chief, starting on Jan. 17.

Simmons, who was formerly assistant chief, shared his vision with KQED’s Brian Watt, explaining the importance of community policing, ongoing staffing challenges and mental health. Here are highlights from their conversation.

A reckoning after George Floyd

Simmons said when he joined Richmond Police, former chief Chris Magnus was trying to shift the department toward community-oriented policing. According to Simmons, officers were encouraged to build relationships with community-based organizations, such as neighborhood councils and business districts.

“[These groups] would begin to know who their beat officer [was], and there would be a personal connection made. And officers would assume the ownership of the quality of life and the crime issues within those areas that they’re assigned,” he said.

The department has faced its share of scandals. In 2014, Officer Wallace Jensen shot and killed 24-year-old Richard “Pedie” Perez, who was unarmed. Richmond Police was also involved in a massive sexual exploitation case centered on a teenage sex worker.

But the watershed moment likely arrived in earnest in 2020, after racial justice protests sparked by the police murder of George Floyd. In response, law enforcement agencies around the country began to reexamine their own policies and practices.

“Departments were thrown into disarray,” Simmons said.

In response, several East Bay cities, such as Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond, created task forces to reimagine public safety.

Simmons represented the force in Richmond’s effort but said the reallocation of $3 million from the city’s budget to fund policing alternatives had an unintended effect on staffing.

“There wasn’t a strong consideration as to what the impacts to the police department would be directly,” he said. “People on the lower end of the seniority tenure started to believe that there might be layoffs, and they didn’t want to stick around to see if they were going to lose their job.”

Simmons said within a two-year period, Richmond Police lost around 45 officers who were hired at other jurisdictions — including those who had been working to build community relationships.

“We started to be a little bit more on the reactive side, rather than on the proactive side when it comes to solving neighborhood problems,” said Simmons, who, as chief, plans to focus on recruitment and retention to improve relationship-building work.

Mental health for officers and residents

One of Simmons’ other priorities is to improve mental health support for officers. Research has long shown police officers face worse health outcomes than the general public, specifically as it relates to higher rates of depression, burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“When you’re short-staffed, officers are working a lot of mandatory overtime. So, it’s a challenge for us to maintain proper mental health and proper work-life balance and make sure that our staff gets to spend time with their families and their friends and spend time doing things that you know fills their spirit, so to speak,” Simmons said.

The way Richmond Police handles mental health made headlines last year, following the police shooting death of 27-year-old Angel Montaño. During a 911 call, his family said he was threatening to kill them and cited “mental health issues.”

At the time, Bisa French, Richmond Police’s former chief, called for reforms but expressed uncertainty about “what can be done differently.”

Simmons acknowledged that distress calls associated with mental health continue to be a challenge. He said the department will keep focusing on annual training.

“Until the system changes, this will continue to be an issue that society relies on law enforcement to be a response to,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do in this area, but Richmond [Police] and myself, we’re going to be committed to being as well-trained as we can, as empathetic as we possibly can and understanding the dynamics — while also putting the reverence for life as one of our primary things that is in our oath that we have to protect. It’s a balance.”

Concerns over surveillance tech

As many California cities have doubled down on automated license plate readers, Simmons has prioritized data privacy concerns. Last fall, he decided to shut down Richmond’s system after a configuration error made local data potentially searchable by outside agencies.

“Not only are we a sanctuary state, but we are also a sanctuary city,” he said. “As such, I support the values and ideals of this community, making sure that our immigrant community, our undocumented community, and everybody in Richmond who calls Richmond home have the right to feel like their privacy is protected and it’s not being exploited by any city government or police department.”

In December, Flock Safety, the system vendor, told KQED that it had shut off out-of-state access to camera data from California law enforcement agencies.

The police department wrote in a Facebook post announcing the suspension that it has no evidence that any outside agency actually viewed Richmond’s data.

Since then, Simmons said he wanted to get the system running again, arguing the lack of access to ALPR data has left investigators, officers and victims of crime “at a deficit, where we would have had a lot of investigative leads.”

“There are a lot of crimes that have been committed in our city and our community since turning that off,” Simmons said. “It is extremely important for us to be able to leverage technology so that we can provide the best possible law enforcement services to our community, [while] ensuring that privacy is protected. I value both of those things equally.”