The embattled former police chief of Vallejo, a San Francisco Bay Area city that has attracted national attention over police violence, has said that he endured a steady procession of racist remarks from colleagues and online harassment and threats that ultimately led him to resign.

By the time Chief Shawny Williams tendered his resignation in 2022, he said he had received a slew of threats – at his office, at his home, and in his email inbox. Most demanded he step down. But even after resigning, the threats still came by mail to his home and a second property he owned outside the state.

“They were hostile, toxic,” Williams testified in a deposition on Wednesday . “I had safety concerns.”

Williams made the statements as part of a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Vallejo poli

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