In early 2019, reporters from the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism obtained a list of criminal convictions from the past decade of nearly 12,000 current or former law enforcement officers and people who applied to be in law enforcement. The records — provided by the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training in response to a Public Records Act request — didn’t indicate which individuals on the list actually worked in law enforcement nor the departments where they were employed.
Instead of providing any more information, POST referred the reporters to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office, which wrote the reporters a letter calling the release of the records “inadvertent” and indicating mere possession of the document was a crime. The letter instructed the reporters to destroy the list or face legal action.
Instead, the reporting program formed an unprecedented collaboration to investigate the list, involving three dozen news outlets across the state.
Berkeley reporters first performed a simple name match, comparing the individuals on the supposedly secret convictions list with a roster of current and former peace officers, which was also obtained from POST. The effort found about 4,000 of the individuals with a conviction had the same name as someone who had been a cop in California. Given the volume, the reporters identified cases involving officers who would have been employed in the past decade, focusing largely on non-driving offenses.
Reporters across the state then fanned out to inspect case files from local courthouses in almost every county. They encountered numerous hurdles including poor record keeping, uncooperative clerks and hundreds of destroyed files. They ultimately reviewed about 1,000 files. Some were clearly false matches — a person convicted of a crime who merely shared the same name as a cop. Many, however, were clearly officers. In cases where it wasn’t clear, the reporters used other public records and interviewed sources to confirm identities.
Reporters also searched news clips from the past decade to bolster the research.
In the end, the effort identified 630 officers convicted of a crime since late 2008. That is clearly an underestimate, but it is also the most comprehensive public accounting of criminal convictions involving peace officers in California.
Those cases now comprise a database created for this project, and are the basis for the news articles produced by the collaboration.
Contact us if you believe any information in our reports is inaccurate. We would also appreciate hearing if you are aware of a case that’s missing from our list. Our email address is cacriminalcops@gmail.com.
Project contributors
Lead Reporting Team
Robert Lewis, Investigative Reporting Program
Laurence Du Sault, Investigative Reporting Program
Katey Rusch, Investigative Reporting Program
David DeBolt, Bay Area News Group
Lead Data Team
Robert Lewis, Investigative Reporting Program
Jason Paladino, Investigative Reporting Program
Jeremy Rue, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Kaitlyn Bartley, Bay Area News Group
Andrew Beale, Investigative Reporting Program
Ali DeFazio, Investigative Reporting Program
Lead Editing Team
Mike Frankel, Bay Area News Group
Bert Robinson, Bay Area News Group
John Temple, Investigative Reporting Program
Lowell Bergman, Investigative Reporting Program
David Barstow, Investigative Reporting Program
Lead Photo and Design Team
Karl Mondon, Bay Area News Group
Cindy Yamanaka, Southern California News Group
Zachary Stauffer, Investigative Reporting Program
Sarah Dussault, Bay Area News Group
Michele Cardon, Southern California News Group
Pai, Bay Area News Group
Chris Gotsill, Bay Area News Group
Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley
Brian Perlman, Investigative Reporting Program
Burt Hubbard, Investigative Reporting Program
Lucie Kroening, Investigative Reporting Program
Loi Ameera Lameron, Investigative Reporting Program
Erin Stone, Investigative Reporting Program
Edward Booth, Investigative Reporting Program
Eric Murphy, Investigative Reporting Program
Voice of San Diego
Sara Libby, Voice of San Diego
Jesse Marx, Voice of San Diego
Katy Stegall, Voice of San Diego
Lyle Moran, Voice of San Diego
Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting
Stan Alcorn, Reveal
Deborah George, Reveal
MediaNews Group
Frank Suraci, Southern California News Group
Joe Geha, Bay Area News Group
Nate Gartrell, Bay Area News Group
Gary Klien, Bay Area News Group
Robert Salonga, Bay Area News Group
Thomas Peele, Bay Area News Group
Erin Woo, Bay Area News Group
Randy Vasquez, Bay Area News Group
Olga Grigoryants, Southern California News Group
Rich De Atley, Southern California News Group
Joe Nelson, Southern California News Group
Brian Rokos, Southern California News Group
Sandra Emerson, Southern California News Group
Sean Emery, Southern California News Group
Paul Bersebach, Southern California News Group
Shannon Hoffman, Southern California News Group
Sarah Favot, Southern California News Group
Andre Byik, Chico-Enterprise Record
Michael Todd, Santa Cruz Sentinel
Ruth Schneider, Eurekea Times-Standard
Aidan Freeman, Lake County Record-Bee
Tom Wright, Monterey County Herald
McClatchy
Robert Salladay, McClatchy/Sacramento Bee
Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee
Darrell Smith, Sacramento Bee
Nathaniel Levine, Sacramento Bee
Matt Fountain, San Luis Obispo Tribune
Rob Parsons, Merced Sun-Star
Rosalio Ahumada, Modesto Bee
Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado, Fresno Bee
Elliot Wailoo, Sacramento Bee
USA Today Network
Julie Makinen, The Desert Sun
Christopher Damien, Desert Sun
Damon Arthur, Record Searchlight
Jenny Espino, Record Searchlight
Rob Parsons, Merced Sun-Star
Marcella Corona, Reno Gazette-Journal
Joe Szydlowski, The Salinas Californian
Chelcey Adami, The Salinas Californian
Cheri Carlson, Ventura County Star
Darrin Peschka, Ventura County Star
Sheyanne Romero, Visalia Times-Delta
Eric Woomer, Visalia Times-Delta
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism provided support for this project.
Click here to read all of the articles in this series published by The Mercury News and East Bay Times.