ANTIOCH, Calif. — Boise Police Deputy Chief Tammany Brooks is being sued in California for his alleged role in a string of racist and offensive text messages between the City of Antioch Police Department, where he was the police chief from May 2017 through October of 2021.
The complaint filed in federal court on Wednesday cites a District Attorney of Contra Costa County, California investigation that detailed text messages sent between Antioch police officers from 2019 through 2022. It alleges there were "derogatory, homophobic and sexually explicit language and photographs" shared by police about local citizens.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of six people who had contact with or whose family member had contact with Antioch police, lists nine total Antioch Police Department officers who are being sued as well as the city itself.
The complaint says the department regularly referred to people as "monkeys," "gorillas," "f--gots," "water buffalos," and other derogatory terms. It also alleges officers "celebrated" the targeting of Black citizens, like "we just ran down a monkey."
"Appallingly, at least 45 officers participated in or were aware of this misconduct and did nothing," the complaint says. A protest was held outside Antioch police headquarters as the Antioch City Council later approved audits of the department’s internal affairs unit, the Associated Press reported.
The plaintiffs say they experienced malicious treatment by the officers during the time frame the officers exchanged these messages, and believe that each of their interactions with Antioch police officers "constituted numerous civil rights violations." The plaintiffs allege those civil rights violations came in the form of assaults, beatings, false arrests, unreasonable searches and seizures, intimidation, kidnapping, falsifying reports, denial of equal protection, racial discrimination, conspiracy to violate civil rights and/or other misconduct
Brooks is being sued individually as part of the lawsuit. The suit alleges he was aware of the openly racist conduct of his officers, alleged excessive force that was used and that he failed to take any measures to prevent it. It also claims Brooks "encouraged and ratified the repeated and widespread pattern and practice of unconstitutional actions" by those officers.
According to Boise Police Department's Instagram, Brooks is the first Black deputy chief in the department.
The Associated Press reported an Antioch officer texted someone at another department saying, "Since we don't have video I sometimes just say people gave me a full confession when they didn't, get filed easier."
Contra Costa County's public defender said that nearly half of the department was included in the text chains, according to the AP. Antioch Police Chief Steve Ford called the alleged behavior “racially abhorrent content and incomprehensible" in a statement last week.
"These people were subjected to a systematic and intentional effort to repress their existence through discriminatory and violent policing. The victims complained about the conspiracy, spoken or unspoken, of abuse over the years. Their calls for justice and reform went unheard for years and years," the complaint says.
The Boise Police Department has not yet responded to KTVB's inquiries at the time of publication. KTVB also reached out to the Antioch Police Dept. but has not received a response.
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