Vallejo has released its long-secret police badge-bending report. Read it here.
The city of Vallejo has been forced to release its investigation into a macabre police ritual, first exposed by Open Vallejo six years ago, in which officers bent the tips of their star-shaped badges to mark each civilian they killed. Officers called the tradition, “The Badge of Honor.”
Open Vallejo’s reporting sparked immediate impact. Vallejo police shot someone on average every four months between 2000 and 2020, often fatally, data shows. The most recent killing came less than two months before this newsroom exposed the badge-bending ritual in July 2020; the department has not killed anyone since. When California passed a landmark 2021 law banning law enforcement gangs, the bill’s bicameral analyses cited the badge-bending revelations.
The California Department of Justice opened a review of Vallejo police in 2020, citing the “number and nature” of shootings by officers. A voluntary reform effort stalled, and in 2023 Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the city, alleging a pattern of excessive force. Vallejo agreed to court-enforced reforms.
Vallejo announced its own investigation days after Open Vallejo’s article was published. The city hired former Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano, then refused to release his report. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and Open Vallejo each sued under California transparency laws. In 2025, a state appeals court ordered the report disclosed in the ACLU’s case, which Open Vallejo supported with two friend-of-the-court briefs, and the California Supreme Court declined to intervene.
