On June 27, 2025, the Court of Appeal in City of Vallejo v. Superior Court held that a report investigating a practice of law enforcement officers bending their badges following involvement in an officer-involved shooting, and other records, was not a confidential personnel record under the Pitchess statute. Rather, the records were personnel records subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act ("CPRA"). The Court also concluded that the officer names in the investigation report cannot be redacted wholesale and remanded to the trial court to determine whether redactions to officer names are required. The case emphasizes greater disclosure requirements of law enforcement records related to officer-involved shootings, part of a major amendment to the Pitchess framework in 2018 by SB 1421, housed in Penal Code section ("Section") 832.7(b).
Background
July 2020, Open Vallejo, a local news outlet, published a story alleging a group of City of Vallejo ("City") police officers bent a point of their star shaped badge to commemorate "each time they kill[ed] in the line of duty." The City's Police Officer Association disagreed with this characterization of the badge-bending practice, stating the practice was done to signify officers "surviving officer-involved shootings" and not to commemorate or celebrate an officer killing someone in the line of duty.
This story was published during a time of escalating concern regarding the City's police department. The month before the story was published, then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra had announced an "expansive review" of the police department's practices, policies, and procedures. Following the story by Open Vallejo, the police department issued a press release announcing an independent, third-party investigation into the allegations of badge bending. The investigation looked at whether any department policies were violated. The investigation was opened as an internal affairs investigation and focused on officers who had been involved in shootings in the previous 17 years. Fourteen officers were issued notices that they may have violated City police department policies, including a policy governing the use of deadly force.
The investigation resulted in a 167-page report and a supplement with 27 attached exhibits. Regarding the badge-bending practice, the investigation found that badges were bent related to an officer firing a weapon in a critical incident, regardless of whether a suspect was hit, injured, or killed. The investigation found that there was not enough evidence to make a finding that the practice was done to celebrate shooting incidents, but rather it was to recognize the officer doing their job in a stressful situation and surviving. The investigation found the practice was problematic and could be misinterpreted, as it had been here. The investigation also found no violations of the department's use of force policy, but that six of the 14 officers had violated other policies. Ultimately, no officers were disciplined because of the investigation.
In January 2022, the ACLU submitted a CPRA request for all records pertaining to allegations of badge-bending by officers involved in on-duty lethal shootings. In its CPRA request, the ACLU specifically requested the investigation report and all supporting documentation, among other requested documents. The City disclosed some documents, but claimed other responsive documents, including the investigation report, were confidential peace officer personnel records exempt from public disclosure. The City cited multiple reasons for withholding, including the CPRA catchall exemption.
In 2018, SB 1421 amended Section 832.7 by adding Section 832.7(b). The amendment requires disclosure of certain peace officer personnel records and records relating to specified incidents, complaints, and investigations to be made available pursuant to the CPRA. Section 832.7(b)(1)(A)(i) requires the disclosure of a "record relating to the report, investigation, or findings of ... [a]n incident involving the discharge of a firearm at a person by a peace officer or custodial officer."
In November 2022, the ACLU filed a complaint challenging the sufficiency of the City's response to its CPRA request. The ACLU contended that the investigation report was not a confidential personnel record, but rather was a record related to officer involved shooting under Section 837.2(b) and was thus subject to disclosure.
In December 2023, the trial court ruled on a Pitchess motion filed by the ACLU seeking material relevant to the CPRA request. For the purposes of the Pitchess motion, the ACLU acknowledged the investigation report was a "personnel record," but the main issue was whether they were disclosable as a record related to an officer involved shooting. The City argued the request was overbroad, did not properly balance competing interests of disclosure, confidentiality, and privacy, and maintained the records sought were confidential personnel records.
For the Pitchess motion, the Court ordered disclosure of 19 of the 167-page investigation report, and for the pages disclosed, that officer names, witnesses, and families of officers be redacted. The Court issued a protective order preventing further release of the documents. The Court found that the investigation report was within the definition of a personnel record as it involved findings of misconduct, which would become part of an officer's permanent file. The Court also found that the investigation was not "sufficiently related to the discharge of a firearm to qualify for the exception."
In June 2024, the ACLU filed a writ of mandate compelling the City to disclose all non-exempt public records responsive to the CPRA and alleging the police department had violated the CPRA by failing to disclose records in a timely manner. The ACLU renewed its argument that the report and related records are not personnel records under the Pitchess statute, and even if they were personnel records, they are subject to disclosure as they are records relating to an officer involved shooting. The City maintained that the records were confidential personnel records and that the investigation report was only "tangentially" related to any shooting, did not fall within the precise wording of the statute, and was "sufficiently distinct from officer shooting incidents and their reasonably foreseeable aftermath."
The trial court ruled that most of the records were confidential personnel records, and the materials were only "indirectly related" to an investigation of a shooting. The court ordered, that in addition to what was disclosed pursuant to the ACLU's Pitchess motion, identifying information pertaining to officers and witnesses, and their families, could be redacted because disclosure of the names might "affect potential advancement, appraisal, discipline, or references," and that under the CPRA's catchall exemption, protecting the identifying information outweighed the benefit to the public from releasing it.
Both the ACLU and the City appealed, challenging various aspects of the trial court's ruling.
The Court of Appeal's Decision
The Court of Appeal held that the records the ACLU sought, including the investigation report, is a non-confidential personnel record subject to public disclosure under Section 832.7(b), and that the trial court's reasoning for redacting officer names cannot be sustained. However, the Court remanded the case back to the trial court for further proceedings on the issue of redaction.
Investigation Report Is A Non-Confidential Personnel Record Subject to Public Disclosure
The Court started by examining the statutory language of Section 832.7(b). The Court focused on the phrase "relate to," and how case law supports a broad interpretation of the phrase. Other subsections of Section 832.7(b) use the phrase "directly related to" rather than "related to," which the Court found supported a broad interpretation because the Legislature knows how to use limiting language, and did so elsewhere in the same statute. However, there is statutory language supporting a narrow interpretation of "relate to," which led the court to look at the statute's legislative history.
The Court found that the statute "requires public disclosure of records relating to any report, investigation, or finding of an incident involving an officer shooting."
Redaction of Officer Names Was Improper
The statutory scheme allows redactions—some are mandatory, such as personal data or information, protecting witnesses and whistleblowers, or if there is a specific, articulable, and particularized reason to believe disclosure would pose a significant danger to the safety of an officer. Some are permissive, such as a catchall provision that states redaction is permitted "where, on the facts of the particular case, the public interest served by not disclosing the information clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the information." The Court noted that because this case falls under the CPRA, the catchall exemption also applies, which requires a case-by-case balancing process that demonstrates a clear overbalance on the side of confidentiality.
The Court of Appeal acknowledges the complexity of this determination. The court stated that determining whether an officer's name was required to be redacted due to witness or whistleblower status, or whether the name may be redacted due to the balancing of the public interest in disclosure versus non-disclosure, may "differ depending on how and why the officer came to be named in the records." The Court remanded the "exacting examination" to the trial court but first offered guidance on remand.
The Court highlighted that the mandatory redaction provisions in Section 832.7(b) weigh against the redaction of information pertaining to peace officers as the statute explicitly excludes from redaction "names and work-related information of peace and custodial officers." And in terms of officer safety, there must be a "specific, articulable, and particularized reason" for the redaction.
Turning next to the permissive redaction provisions of the statute, the Court found that because the CPRA and Section 832.7(b)'s language is identical, it could rely on CPRA cases addressing the issue. After examining multiple appellate and California Supreme Court cases finding that officer names could not be redacted under the CPRA's catchall exemption due to generalized concerns about "retaliation" from "angry members of the community after an officer-involved shooting", the Court determined the trial court's reliance on the CPRA and Section 832.7 (b)(7)'s catchall language to redact all officer names was improper.
Take Aways
When public agencies receive a CPRA request seeking records related to an officer involved shooting, the public agency should not limit its disclosure to records or investigation directly related to the shooting. Rather, the public agency must consider what records are related to an officer involved shooting and likely is required to disclose those records unless a separate CPRA exception applies.
Wholesale redaction of officer names should be based on careful consideration of whether a mandatory or permissive redaction apply. If the latter, generalized concerns about retaliation from angry members of the public, by itself, is not a satisfactory reason to redact officer names.
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