Activists raise alarm over Sonoma County sheriff hiring consultant to produce fatal shooting video

When a deputy shot and killed a farmworker during a July 29 foot chase through a remote corner of the Knights Valley, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office quickly sent raw body camera footage from the incident to a civilian public relations company.

Two weeks later, the firm had produced an edited, 11½-minute video using selections from more than 2½ hours of body camera footage. The video outlined the Sheriff’s Office narrative of the shooting and was posted to the agency’s Facebook and YouTube page on Aug. 14, a Sunday afternoon.

Sheriff Mark Essick told The Press Democrat he released the video to address public concerns about the shooting as quickly as possible.

However, he has yet to release the raw video, saying he has only one member of his staff trained in using editing software to redact the footage for public viewing.

Local reform activists, however, described the Facebook video as propaganda and criticized Essick’s use of a public relations consultant to create what they say are one-sided videos that give the public an incomplete picture of use-of-force incidents.

“Residents of Sonoma County paid with their own tax dollars to have a company with a history of obfuscation of the truth remove their ability to decide for themselves based on actual evidence what happened in the killing of David Pelaez-Chavez,” said Alan Worstell, a volunteer with the North Bay Organizing Project, a Santa Rosa-based coalition of religious, environmental, labor, student and community organizations in Sonoma County. He spoke at a rally Monday evening rally in front of the sheriff’s office.

Worstell and other speakers criticized two companies created by Laura Cole, a former television reporter turned PR consultant, which have been paid at least $200,000 by the county since 2016.

Those payments have come during a period where the county has had to pay out several large wrongful death or excessive force settlements totaling nearly $12 million since 2019. Those settlements, in turn, have contributed to large increases in the county’s liability insurance premiums, which are shouldered by taxpayers.

Amid increased public scrutiny of law enforcement’s use of force both here and nationwide, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has for six years paid Cole a monthly fee of $2,500 to $3,000 to cultivate its online image and provide media coaching.

The agency pays additional fees to Critical Incident Video for the production of narrated, curated body camera footage following use of force incidents.

Those videos included the video the law enforcement agency published Aug. 14 outlining its version of the events that led to the July 29 shooting by Deputy Michael Dietrick.

Dietrick and another deputy had chased Pelaez-Chavez for nearly 45 minutes after what law enforcement officials cast as an erratic series of criminal acts around isolated homes.

It remains unclear what Pelaez-Chavez, a Lower Lake resident, was doing in the area. He was holding gardening tools and a rock when he stopped running from the deputies, but dropped the rock to the ground. According to the sheriff’s office, he was in the act of picking up a second rock preparing to throw it when Dietrick fired three times and killed Pelaez-Chavez.

A toxicology report has not been released. Pelaez-Chavez is a convicted felon with a 2012 firearm conviction that led to his deportation to Mexico. Authorities have not said if deputies were aware of that criminal history or Pelaez-Chavez’s identity during the pursuit.

At Monday’s rally, the dead man’s brothers described him as a cheerful hard worker, a father, grandson and uncle providing for two children back in Mexico. The death had shattered Pelaez-Chavez’s son and daughter, Alfredo Pelaez said.

“My brother was going through a difficult time and what he needed was help,” Pelaez said.

Like others, the family has expressed a desire to view the complete footage.

‘Bring in the experts’

The sheriff’s office paid nearly $5,950 for production of the most recent video, Essick said. In the past, it has paid $4,900 for such videos, according to records obtained by The Press Democrat.

Essick said his office contracts with Cole to provide a level of media expertise he cannot afford to provide through staffing.

“It's an acknowledgment that as cops we're not necessarily experts in some areas and you've got to bring in the experts … to help you out,” Essick said.

Department officials say the videos are created to help comply with a state law enacted in 2019 that requires law enforcement agencies to publish body camera footage in the wake of uses of force that cause grave injury or death.

The 11-minute, 37-second Pelaez-Chavez video includes approximately six minutes and 20 seconds of footage from the body cameras of Dietrick and deputy Anthony Powers, according to a Press Democrat analysis.

Essick on Aug. 19 estimated his office could take another two weeks to produce the complete body camera videos but said it could take longer. State law requires the agency to produce the complete footage within 45 days but does not preclude earlier release.

Essick has one staff member assigned to redact footage videos, he said. He cited budget constraints as a reason to not train more people in that work or in media response.

“We know that putting out critical incident videos does not satisfy the spirit or letter of (the 2019-enacted state law),” Essick said. However, he said, the department has complied with the law in past instances and released complete footage and other required records.

“We put out the (Cole-produced) video first because there is usually an insatiable public need from both the public and the media to get it out as quickly as possible,” Essick said. “So we use (Critical Incident Video) to get it out quickly.”

However, the release of raw footage to a civilian contractor while withholding it from the general public could conflict with state laws governing access to public records, experts have said.

David Loy, the legal director of government transparency advocacy group the First Amendment Coalition, said he believes the agency waived any reason to withhold the complete footage when it publishes segments produced by a third party.

‘For transparency’s sake’

The sheriff’s office paid Cole’s two firms at least $198,000 between August 2016 and February of this year, according to invoices compiled by The Press Democrat.

His agency had around 628 employees as of April, when Essick sought more than $192 million for his current budget from the board of supervisors.

His budget is approved by the supervisors. Budget discussions did not reach a level of detail where supervisors discussed the sheriff’s outside vendors for PR services, two supervisors said this week.

“The public should be able to see the unvarnished, raw video that exists,” Supervisor Chris Coursey said in an interview that came before Essick’s Aug. 19 pledge to release video within two weeks.

“For transparency’s sake it is a good thing to release it all when you’re releasing the kind of sanitized version,” Coursey said. “Otherwise, people are wondering what’s to hide.”

In a text message to The Press Democrat, board chair James Gore said he wasn’t familiar with the consulting firm. He said he “appreciated that (the video) contextualized the situation without editorializing,” but would be reviewing the entire footage when it was released.

“If outsourcing allows the Sheriff’s office to get the information out quickly...I support that,” he wrote.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s office, and the Santa Rosa Police Department, the second-largest law enforcement agency in the county, do not have standing contracts with outside PR firms, according to officials from both agencies.

Classes to outsmart reporters

Cole declined requests for telephone interviews. Instead, she sought to have a Press Democrat reporter visit her studio in Vacaville for a video-recorded interview that she said would be used for “my work purposes,” at conferences and on social media. The Press Democrat declined while repeatedly offering her opportunities to participate in recorded phone interviews.

Online, Cole markets a “no spin” policy.

“We help civic entities communicate the facts about sensitive situations with an empathetic, fact-first approach,” the Cole Pro Media website states. “We never spin — period. We help our clients be direct and socially in-tune as it relates in the heat of pressured situations.”

That has not always been Cole’s message, however. In May 2017, her business marketed a combative approach to the media. “It is time to take back the control from the Mainstream Media and get the real stories out there,” Cole Pro Media’s Facebook page read that year, according to a report in the Modesto Bee.

The company has also offered classes to “outsmart reporters,” according to the Bee and other news outlets.

Essick, however, maintained that his discussions with Cole centered on “transparency” and providing facts to the public. “If I tried to spin something, she would call me on it,” he said.

In a February 2020 email to a North Carolina police chief describing her work, Cole wrote she had contracted with more than 30 law enforcement agencies including the sheriff’s office, the Vacaville Police Department, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, Concord Police Department and the Watsonville Police Department. A copy of the email was published by two independent journalism outfits, The Appeal and The Vallejo Sun.

Sonoma County critics say Cole's work attempts to spin use of force incidents by producing a curated version of events, while the Sheriff’s office makes the public wait for access to the footage in its entirety.

‘Definitely not objective’

Izaak Schwaiger, a Sebastopol-based civil rights attorney who has represented at least four plaintiffs who have sued the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office over high-profile uses of force in recent years, said Cole Pro Media helps the sheriff create “propaganda,” not outreach.

He is representing Pelaez-Chavez family, which plans to file a wrongful-death suit.

“The productions are definitely not objective,” he said. “It’s propaganda, pure and simple.”

The videos Cole’s company produces have played into those lawsuits. One ongoing case involves a June 2, 2021, incident where a Sheriff’s canine bit Adam Gabriel, who deputies suspected of being an accomplice to a carjacking.

Gabriel, however, had nothing to do with the crime, and the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute him. He sued the county over injuries including nerve damage, puncture wounds, loss of “significant use of his right arm” and other damages.

Deputies arrested Gabriel after mistakenly identifying his vehicle. More than a month later, on July 12, the department published a Critical Incident Video-produced “community briefing.”

“The first deputy to respond to this location found a green Subaru Forester,” the narration in the video still on YouTube states. “The vehicle matched the make, model and color of the car driven by the carjacking suspect,” it continues.

Above the lines of the narration is a still shot of Gabriel’s car, a blue Subaru Outback.

“The Sheriff’s Office lied to the public,” Schwaiger wrote in his Feb. 7 complaint on the subject.

Questions of accuracy

In the Pelaez-Chavez video, the narration suggests officers first fired a Taser , “which seemed ineffective,” before the lethal force was used, which echoed previous descriptions. The Facebook video is much less clear. Though the footage is shaky as the deputies move around, Powers’ use of his stun gun and Dietrick’s pistol shots occur almost simultaneously.

“We do the absolute best job we can to ensure (the videos) provide factual information and that we don't editorialize,” Essick said. “Is it perfect all the time? I will concede with you that it's possible we can make mistakes. But I think taken in whole that we do a very good job of just presenting the facts.”

At the rally, speakers pointed to a 2020 department response to another K-9 incident, where Cole’s companies assisted with production of both a news release and a video. A wide range of public critics said the video provided a false narrative of the events.

Ultimately, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office declined to press any charges against Jason Anglero-Wyrick, the man bitten by the police dog.

Schwaiger filed a federal lawsuit in that case in March 2021, and it is ongoing.

“Immediately following the incident, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office enlisted (Cole’s companies) to craft a news release designed to whitewash the actions of the deputies, and to vilify (the) Plaintiff,” Schwaiger wrote in his federal complaint.

When the sheriff’s office posted the video to Facebook, officials also initially posted a comment suggesting it was “time for a treat,” for the dog but later removed it, according to a previous Press Democrat report.

Anglero-Wyrick has sued for damages including a bite that “left a hole as big as a baseball in (his) leg, requiring multiple reconstructive surgeries to repair,” according to the complaint.

Burden on public coffers

At the rally Monday, some reform advocates argued Cole’s costs were just another burden on public coffers driven by law enforcement’s use of force. Advocates say Pelaez-Chavez’ death is a new reason to reexamine the county’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review.

Leaders of that agency have said they’re unable to conduct independent oversight until the Santa Rosa Police Department finishes its law enforcement investigation and the sheriff’s office concludes an administrative review of the incident.

The California Attorney General’s Office has declined to launch its own investigation. The agency has repeatedly declined to say whether state prosecutors reviewed body camera footage before deciding not to investigate.

“We’re bleeding out money,” North Bay Organizing Project’s Police Accountability Task Force leader Kimi Barbosa told The Press Democrat. “Just have independent oversight. Just have independent investigations.”

Barbosa pointed to the sheriff’s liability insurance premiums, which have risen following previous settlements over use of force lawsuits. In September 2020, The Press Democrat reported on a $2.7 million, 46% increase in those premiums. The increase outstripped that of 11 other California counties and followed $6.6 million in damage payments over excessive force or wrongful death claims.

That year, the department paid $5.9 million in liability insurance premiums. Since then, the premium has risen to $8.9 million annually, according to Sonoma County Risk Manager Janell Crane.

Since 2020, the county has settled three cases for $700,000 or more, according to Crane. She cautioned that insurance rate markets are also in a poor cycle for buyers, with high demand driving increased rates, “which simply means that it is more expensive to purchase coverage.”

The most notable payment by far was a $3.8 million payment to the family of David Ward, who was killed when a deputy yanked him out of his car using a carotid-artery choke-hold, a technique Essick later banned through department policy. That was the largest civil settlement in county history.

Other cases included an $875,000 settlement over excessive force against Sonoma Valley resident Fernando Del Valle and two cases resulting from vehicle pursuits, one that settled for $700,000 and one that settled for $150,000.

In both the Ward and Del Valle cases, the deputies who were found to have used excessive force were fired. Essick was involved in both decisions. As sheriff, he sought former deputy Charles Blount’s dismissal immediately upon reviewing footage of Ward’s death.

In the 2016 Del Valle case, Essick, then a captain, investigated the incident, found then-deputy Scott Thorne violated department policy, moved for his dismissal and later testified against him in a criminal trial.

Juries, however, did not find either Blount or Thorne guilty of any crimes.

Former staff writer Emily Wilder contributed to this report.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88