VALLEJO – A former Vallejo police officer who was fired three years ago for endangering a colleague during the 2019 shooting of Willie McCoy sued the city and a former police captain last week, alleging that his personnel files were improperly retained and leaked.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, alleges that former Vallejo police Officer Ryan McMahon was forced to leave the Broadmoor Police Department earlier this year after the Vallejo Sun reported that he was flagged for poor performance in connection with seven different incidents in 2018, including endangering another officer during a pursuit.
According to the lawsuit, the records used in the story were training memos that were supposed to be purged in 2018 and were improperly retained.
McMahon alleges that former Vallejo police Capt. John Whitney, who exposed the department’s tradition of bending the tips of their badges following a shooting, took confidential personnel records before he was fired. Whitney implicated McMahon as participating in the badge bending tradition in his own lawsuit filed in 2020, which he settled for $900,000 last week.
McMahon also alleged that Lt. Shane Bower did not properly secure his personnel records, which led to the records being leaked to the Sun.
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McMahon joined the Vallejo Police Department in 2017 after stints in the Sausalito Police Department and the Central Marin Police Authority, according to state records.
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