The city of Rohnert Park recently reached a settlement with multiple citizens that filed civil rights lawsuits claiming their property, including cannabis and cash, was stolen during illegal seizures by the Rohnert Park Police Department. The settlement is yet another in a series of court cases filed against a city that has endured multiple legal battles involving its public safety officers.
The amount of money in the settlement is undisclosed to the public, but the officers involved have already cost the city approximately $2 million, as reported by the STAR in August, 2019.
Plaintiff Huedell Freeman told the Press Democrat, “I’m in my 60s, and I have played by the rules for many years…I had a fundamental belief in the legal system, a fundamental belief in our police. And that was shaken by what happened. It was badly shaken.”
Eight different drivers stepped forward and claimed they were stopped on Highway 101, by what they thought were police officers. These officers, often operating unmarked and without a badge, would threaten motorists using legal language, and illegally search vehicles with the intention of stealing cash and cannabis.
Most of the stops occurred in 2015 and 2016, and none of the victims were Rohnert Park residents.
Brendon ‘Jacy’ Tatum, a former Rohnert Park police officer, is at the center of the controversy. He was an enthusiastic anti-cannabis crusader that received Officer-of-the-Year recognition for his high number of seizures, and he was promoted to Sergeant in 2015. Tatum is named repeatedly by accusers as an aggressor and instigator during the incidents, and he resigned in 2018 as internal investigations closed in on his actions.
The lawsuits alleged that Tatum and others engaged in extortion, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, grand larceny, and racketeering, and they conspired to steal assets and launder the illicit money through vehicle and real estate transactions. Tatum, along with former officers Chris Snyder and Joseph Huffaker; Jeffrey Taylor, former director of the interdiction team; and Brian Masterson, former director of public safety, were all named in the series of lawsuits.
According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, a department-wide audit, that began after the allegations, forced the police department to strengthen supervision of its police officers and its evidence booking. This comes after reports surfaced that 800 pounds of cannabis marked for destruction could not be accounted for, and Tatum was the man responsible for destroying the evidence.
“Who do we trust?” claims Sonoma State college student Josh Medina. “Cops stealing pot? What’s next?”
The community has yet to understand the severity of this crime. One plaintiff in a prior lawsuit, Ezekiel Flatten, came forward to describe the harassment he received after filing. He was threatened repeatedly, targeted on social media, and he discovered that a GPS tracking device was secretly installed on his vehicle. The intimidation tactics were ultimately unsuccessful, and Flatten is fighting so that others do not face the same injustice he encountered.
Flatten’s lawsuit alleged that, “between 2014 and 2017, defendants Tatum and Huffaker conducted hundreds of stops and unlawful searches, outside of city limits, while personally enriching themselves from the thefts of marijuana and cash.”
The city clearly didn’t want this getting blown out of proportion, so information is limited, and while Flatten’s $415,000 settlement was made public, the most recent were undisclosed, so residents can only guess how many of their tax dollars were spent to settle these lawsuits.
