MARTINEZ — Three officers engaged in misconduct following a police shooting last summer in Martinez and are now no longer employed by the city, according to newly released documents.
On Friday, the Martinez Police Department posted dozens of records related to the incident, which happened Aug. 18, 2023, outside the Velvet cannabis dispensary at 4808 Sunrise Drive. Officers shot and killed Tahmon Wilson, 20, of San Francisco, and wounded his older brother while responding to a burglary alarm at the business.
The documents detail how Officer Giani Arone kneed the older brother two to three times in the head while he was handcuffed and then helped Officer Cole Bennett and Officer Alexander Tirona hide an illegal knife Bennett was carrying at the time.
Separate administrative investigations into the kneeing and knife incidents found that the three officers violated police department policy. More specifically, Arone used unreasonable force and failed to report the use of force. Arone also took the knife from Bennett and put it in his patrol vehicle after Tirona told Bennett to get rid of it.
The knife was illegal to carry under state law, and the records indicated the three officers worked together to hide the weapon to keep Bennett from getting in trouble.
Arone was fired and his termination was upheld by both the city manager and the Civil Service Commission. Bennett and Tirona were probationary officers at the time of the shooting and were released before the probe into the knife incident was finished.
“It is disappointing that misconduct occurred at the scene of this incident after the shooting and understandably adds a layer of complexity to the officer-involved shooting investigation,” Chief Andrew White said in a statement. “Once we learned of the misconduct, we took immediate action, conducting thorough investigations, and ultimately imposing termination as a disciplinary measure. As a department, we are committed to maintaining the highest standards of professional conduct.”
The police department on Friday also posted transcripts of interviews with the officers who shot the brothers. The decision to open fire, they said, was influenced by a suspect in a car displaying a firearm, the car hitting an officer and the car traveling toward other officers.
Adante Pointer, an attorney for the Wilson family, previously said the brothers did not pose an immediate threat because they were driving away from the officers. One round hit Wilson in the back of the head and two rounds hit his older brother in the back.
Because criminal and administrative investigations into the shooting are ongoing, no final determinations have been made regarding the officers’ use of deadly force and their compliance with department policy, according to the police department.
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