• Vallejo Police Department did not name the officer in a news release Monday.
• An attorney with the family of the man who died, Sean Monterrosa, identified him as Jarrett Tonn.
• The department has not publicly named Tonn nor the other officers involved.

An independent investigation concluded that a police detective in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo’s use of deadly force in the shooting of a 22-year-old man in 2020 “was not objectively reasonable” — a rare move by a department under scrutiny for its high rate of fatal officer shootings.

In a news release Monday, the Vallejo Police Department, which commissioned the investigation, did not name the officer, but an attorney for the man who died, Sean Monterrosa, identified him as Jarrett Tonn, a detective with the department for more than six years.

Tonn and the other officers who responded to a report of looting at a Walgreens after midnight on June 2, 2020 have not been publicly identified by the department. The incident occurred amid widespread protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A court order in a related lawsuit brought by the union, the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, prevents Vallejo police officials from identifying the fired officer.

The department and city also declined to comment further, but stated that a redacted copy of the “notice of discipline” would be made public.

Tonn and his attorney could not be reached for comment immediately, and it was unclear whether he planned to challenge his firing in arbitration.

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He was placed on leave following the shooting of Monterrosa, a San Francisco native. Authorities said that at the time, an officer arriving on the scene was sitting in the back of an unmarked police truck when he fired five times through a windshield, killing Monterrosa, who the officer thought had a gun and was kneeling “in preparation to shoot.”

Authorities said Monterrosa had stopped and was crouched down in a half-kneeling position facing the officers, and investigators later recovered a hammer from his sweatshirt pocket.

A month after the shooting, police released body camera footage from officers. Three officers in the truck had their cameras activated, but none of the videos showed Monterrosa before Tonn fired his weapon through the front windshield. The vehicle itself lacked a camera.

Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams stated in a notice to Tonn on Dec. 1, 2021, that while the officer felt compelled to use his Colt M4 Commando rifle, none of the other officers on the scene had even unholstered their weapons.

“Your generalised concern that people were engaging in criminal activity, i.e. looting,” Williams wrote, “did not provide you with a reasonable basis to believe that Mr. Monterrosa, in particular, posed a threat of death or serious bodily injury to you or anyone else.” Furthermore, Tonn “failed to timely activate your body worn camera,” which violates department protocol, and his actions “undermine public confidence” in the department, according to the police chief.

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