Vallejo PD lieutenant fired over threatening email to journalist

Lt. Mike Nichelini is still the Vallejo Police Officers' Association President but he's no longer a Vallejo Police Officer.

Video Transcript

MELANIE WOODROW: Lieutenant Mike Nichelini is still the Vallejo Police Officers Association president but he's no longer a Vallejo police officer. His Attorney Mike Rains says Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams fired him.

MIKE RAINS: Mike had challenged some of the chief's decisions on several matters as the president of the Police Association.

MELANIE WOODROW: Rains says Williams told Nichelini he fired him for two reasons, sending an email to POA members that contained an image of an old Vallejo police badge with what appeared to be a swastika.

MIKE RAINS: It was not done by Mike Nichelini as a symbol of hate, advocating hate, advocating bias and prejudice. Not at all.

MELANIE WOODROW: And sending a threatening email to former San Francisco Chronicle East Bay columnist Otis Taylor after Taylor announced he was moving to Georgia to work as an investigative reporter for The Atlanta Journal Constitution. The email in part said, quote, "We will warn our Georgia colleagues of your impending arrival." At the time, Taylor spoke with the ABC 7 News team.

OTIS TAYLOR: To police this threat of "I am going to call the cops on you," police know exactly what that means.

MIKE RAINS: There's no proof that he intended to do anything. There's no threat there.

MELANIE WOODROW: Tiller declined a new interview but in a statement to the team wrote, quote, "This is a step toward repairing the decades of harm by the Vallejo Police Department, and I'm curious to see how the firing impacts the culture of the department."

On the same day Chief Williams fired Nichelini, Rains says he also suspended him without pay for 40 hours in connection with filming civil rights attorney Melissa Nold at a Vallejo City Council meeting. A resident at the meeting shared this photo with the I team.

MELISSA NOLD: I felt that it was targeted towards intimidation. Because it wasn't just that isolated incident. He had been targeting me online.

MELANIE WOODROW: Rains says a police department internal affairs investigator did not find Nichelini had violated department policy but that Chief Williams sustained the allegation on his own.

MIKE RAINS: No, that was not an attempt to intimidate. If he wanted to intimidate, he'd have been much closer. He'd have been in her face.

MELANIE WOODROW: Prior to his firing, Nichelini was initially put on leave for authorizing the replacement of the windshield a Vallejo police officer fired through June 2nd, shooting and killing Sean Monterrosa. Rains says an investigation determined Nichelini did not authorize the windshield replacement. Instead, he says, Chief Williams recommended another client of his, Lieutenant Fabio Rodriguez, be suspended for 40 hours without pay for the authorization.

MIKE RAINS: The window, before it was removed from the car, had been photographed extensively at the scene.

MELANIE WOODROW: Rains expects, if the suspension is upheld, that Rodriguez would get his pay back in arbitration. He also expects Nichelini will get his job back in arbitration. Spokespeople for the city and the Vallejo Police Department said they could not comment on confidential personnel matters.

For the I Team, Melanie Woodrow, ABC 7 News.

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