‘Police weren’t happy with me’ after Merced leader joined call for review. He asked for do-over
.JPG "A Merced Police Department patrol vehicle turns onto West 22nd Street in Merced, Calif., on Tuesday, April 12, 2022.")
The Merced City Council voted to stay the course after recently sending a letter to California’s attorney general asking the state’s top cop to investigate its own police department.
Councilmember Ronnie De Anda, who originally supported the letter, brought a motion at this week’s council meeting to send a second letter asking the AG to hold off until a new police chief is hired. De Anda’s motion was voted down by a 5-2 margin.
De Anda, who represents southwest Merced’s District 2, voted on Jan. 3 with three others on the seven-member City Council to request Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office to conduct a review of Merced Police Department’s patterns and practices.
The issue passed Jan. 3 with Councilmembers De Anda, Jesse Ornelas, Bertha Perez and Fue Xiong voting in support, while Shane Smith, Sarah Boyle and Mayor Matt Serratto opposed.
The letter, sent to Bonta by Merced City Manager Stephanie Dietz, said the request is made in the interest of transparency and bolstering trust between police and the community. It asks for an assessment of “policies, trainings, and practices to identify possible ways to achieve safe and respectful outcomes for members of our community and our sworn and non-sworn officers.”
The attorney general’s office sent a letter acknowledging it had received the letter but didn’t say it would be investigating the police department.
De Anda had a change of heart a few weeks after the original vote to send the letter. He requested the city staff to put the item on the Feb. 21 council agenda for another vote.
“It is my right to request what I did, which is override the letter that was sent by this council to the attorney general,” De Anda said.
Councilmembers on pros, cons of second letter
During a meeting with The Fresno Bee, De Anda acknowledged his vote landed him in hot water with a few of his strongest supporters, some of whom work in law enforcement. A retired mailman, De Anda was endorsed by the Merced Police Officers Association during the Nov. 7 election, where he defeated incumbent Fernando Echevarria by getting 72.6% of the vote.
“I decided that night after I walked out of here that I had made a mistake,” De Anda said. “I hadn’t talked to any cops at this time but I thought it would be helpful if I did and they weren’t happy with me.”
.jpeg "Ronnie De And_fitted (1).jpeg")
De Anda said he felt the timing isn’t right to send the letter to the attorney general while the city is searching for a new police chief and the police department is struggling with the hiring and retaining officers. The city said the current roster is 89 sworn officers,
Smith joined De Anda voting for submitting a second letter to delay any action by the attorney general.
Ornelas, part of the five-member majority, said if police are following proper procedure and protocol, they needn’t worry about an investigation.
“It’s the same thing they told us on the street, if you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about,” Ornelas said.
Serratto voted against the original letter but said he felt sending a second letter would only do more damage.
“What’s done is done, I don’t see any sense in reconsidering it,” he said. “I think it we do reconsider it and do send something else, in a lot of ways it just makes it worse. It’s not going to help. We welcome it. If the attorney general can come in and do things and help improve our police department this would be a good thing.”
