California whistleblower cop, fired for exposing misconduct, wins $900k settlement

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A former SWAT team commander with two master’s degrees, Whitney was terminated in August 2019 after raising concerns about alleged misconduct within the department. They included a tradition, revealed by Open Vallejo the following year, in which Vallejo officers would throw parties and bend the tips of their badges to mark killings committed in the line of duty.

The revelations are likely to impact state and federal litigation for years to come. Criminal defense attorneys have already sought to leverage badge-bending to impeach the credibility of police witnesses; civil rights attorneys amended ongoing lawsuits to argue that the practice — and the alleged inaction of senior officials who knew about it — justifies a federal takeover of the police department.

… Whitney’s lawsuit alleged that senior officials targeted him for retaliation after he repeatedly raised concerns about unethical and potentially illegal conduct within the Vallejo Police Department. In addition to badge-bending, Whitney complained about killings and other uses of force, time card fraud, unfair modifications to a promotional exam, and racial discrimination directed at a Black detective by the head of Vallejo’s police union, according to the lawsuit. The leak investigation, he alleged, “was simply a pretext for illegal retaliation.”

The lawsuit also alleged that Vallejo police officials sought to sabotage Whitney’s career. At the time of his firing, Whitney was the third-highest rank officer in the Vallejo Police Department, where he had worked for more than 19 years. He eventually found a job with the nearby El Cerrito Police Department, where he works as a patrol officer.