A Berkeley police sergeant is back on patrol again following the completion last month of an independent investigation into allegations of racial bias and arrest quotas during his leadership of the department's downtown task force/bike team.
City officials have said the investigation shows that Berkeley Police do not have arrest quotas, nor do they practice racial bias.
City officials also said that the investigation shows the Police Department following state and constitutional law when it enforces protective orders, in addition to having policies that prohibit harassment and discrimination of protected groups of people.
Sgt. Darren Kacalek was the president of the Berkeley Police Association, the union for Berkeley police officers, before he stepped down after the allegations against him surfaced.
Kacalek was put on paid administrative leave after fired Officer Corey Shedoudy sent an email to the City Council in November 2022 and made text messages public that appeared to show bias and quotas.
The investigation stemmed from allegations that the downtown task force/bike team set unethical and illegal quotas for arrests. Investigators wanted to determine if some officers failed to comply with police policies, or local, state and federal laws, and if discipline was appropriate.
In one text, Kacalek appears to repost a message from a person selling their "white privilege card," according to the website Secure Justice, a nonprofit based in Oakland that published some of the messages.
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"I may even be willing to do an even trade for a race card," the post says.
Shedoudy's email claims that the bike unit was ordered by Kacalek to make 100 arrests per month. That was "more than the rest of the police department combined," according to a copy of Shedoudy's email, posted by Secure Justice.
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The San Francisco-based law firm Swanson and McNamara conducted the independent investigation for the city of Berkeley.
The firm looked at the text messages produced by Shedoudy, starting with the formation of a downtown task force/bike team in October 2019. Attorneys also reviewed 50 percent of the 481 arrests reported by the bike team between Oct. 1, 2019, and Nov. 22, 2020, all dates in which Kacalek was employed with Berkeley police.
Shedoudy alleged that an unnamed officer ordered the downtown task force/bike team to conduct the "unethical and illegal practice of arrest quotas of downtown unhoused" beginning when Chief Jen Louis was a Berkeley Police captain, which they say "continued after she was named Interim Chief," according to a summary of the investigation sent to the Berkeley City Attorney's Office.
According to the law firm, it also investigated allegations that the DTF/Bike Force was "ordered by" an unnamed officer "to make 100 arrests per month" and whether fulfillment of the alleged quota was met "using questionable legal tactics that included stop and frisk, probation searches with no reasonable suspicion of a crime, and a very loose interpretation of stay-away orders" from the University of California at Berkeley, the summary said.
Moreover, the summary said the attorneys considered "Chief Louis's 'deafening silence and inaction' in the face of 'evidence from multiple officers inside the unit' and evidence of 'illegal arrest quotas, racism, evidence suppression, lying, and quid pro quos' in the form of 'DTF/Bike Force text messages, e-mails, sworn testimony transcripts, public arrest records, and photographs.'"
Shedoudy was fired following an investigation into whether he intentionally crashed his bike into a car while on patrol. An arbitrator said that Berkeley police were justified in firing Shedoudy because the evidence was "convincing" that he crashed intentionally.
The Police Accountability Board is also doing an investigation to see if police policies and practices need to be improved considering the allegations against Kacalek and the downtown task force/bike team.
That investigation is ongoing, and the City Council will need to adopt any recommendations the board makes.
Deficiencies highlighted by the Board may prompt changes at the local and state level, Hansel Aguilar, director of the Police Accountability Board said Friday.
He said announcing the deficiencies Friday would be premature, but the board is looking at patterns in arrests over time and disparities in arrests.
Aguilar said the messages sent by the officer or officers "were hurtful" and the board has been very sensitive to the public's right to know.
