Vallejo PD investigates photo of badge with swastika
The probe comes after numerous Vallejo PD employees complained about the image, the city's police chief said on Monday.
(Photo via Facebook)
The Vallejo Police Department has hired an outside agency to investigate an employee’s communication that included an image of a police badge with a swastika carved into it.
On Monday, Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams said the probe was launched after his office received “numerous complaints from [police] employees” about a recent social media posting that contained an image of a 1900s-era Vallejo Police Department.
The badge contained an etching of a swastika, a symbol used by Buddhists to symbolize the footprints of the Buddha. A reversed version of the swastika was franchised by Nazi Germany in the 1930s. The badge in question contained a symbol that more closely resembled those used by Buddhists.
In an email to the San Jose Mercury News, former Vallejo Police Department chief Robert Nichelini said and his son, Lt. Michael Nichelini (the current president of Vallejo’s police union), had seen the image before online. Nichelini said the swastika was a “Native American symbol” that had “nothing to do with Nazism.”
Williams is taking no chances: At a town hall last week, the police chief acknowledged an investigation had started into the image, which he called “despicable and disgusting.” On Monday, a press release was issued saying the matter had been referred to an outside agency.
“Racism will not be tolerated in our department, a swastika is a universal symbol of hate and racism and is not accepted here,” Williams said. “Anyone who would imply or suggest otherwise is tone deaf and dishonors the memories and lives of millions of Jewish people and others who died during the Holocaust; they dishonor thousands of innocent Americans who have been lynched and murdered in America and they devalue the suffering and struggles that our country is facing today.”
The probe comes after the police chief and others were forced to respond to a secret ritual within the Vallejo Police Department in which certain officers would bend the tips of their badges following a fatal shooting. The matter was first reported by Open Vallejo, a grassroots news organization that began covering the local law enforcement agency this summer.
Last week, the agency fired a police officer connected to two fatal shootings after an internal investigation revealed the officer, Ryan McMahon, “violated department policies by engaging in unsafe conduct and neglect for basic firearm safety.”
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