By Jakob Rodgers, Nate Gartrell
Bay Area News Group
OAKLAND, Calif. — Disgraced former Antioch police officer Eric Rombough took the witness stand Thursday to offer jurors the perspective of a cop who admitted that he hurt people to amuse himself.
Testifying against Morteza Amiri, his onetime close friend and colleague, Rombough described how the two spent years searching for ways to inflict violence on the city’s residents. They offered to reward each other with a filet mignon dinner or milk and cookies presented by the other’s wife, Rombough testified, as a woman among Amiri’s supporters shook her head.
Speaking in a somber but steady tone, Rombough described how he repeatedly shot people with a less-lethal shotgun that fired rubber bullets, despite having no reason to do so. Rombough recalled meeting with his supervisors to falsify his reports and craft stories that wouldn’t raise others’ suspicions. He wrote those falsified reports “so many times I felt like I had a mental template.”
Rombough confirmed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Cheng that he pulled the trigger of his shotgun while knowing his actions were excessive. When Cheng asked him why, his answer was blunt.
“I had the opportunity to,” Rombough replied. At the Antioch Police Department, he testified, inflicting violence upon the city’s residents meant that “you were noticed, not only by your peers but also by your supervisors. And if you weren’t scared to use force, a lot of doors opened for you.”
Rombough likely would have gone to trial alongside Amiri when proceedings started in an Oakland courthouse on Monday but for the fact that last January he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and civil rights violations. He agreed to testify at trial, and in doing so he expressed regret for his actions.
“I wanted to be a good role model for my two kids and take ownership for what I’ve done,” Rombough said. “I’d love to be able to clear my conscience, show my children and my family that if you make mistakes, you take responsibility for your mistakes. And hopefully that’ll get some clemency as well.”
He testified that he liked Amiri almost immediately after meeting him in a chance encounter. The two shared a bond and wanted to be “proactive” cops who made good arrests and get guns off the streets to “make Antioch safer,” he said. Over time, their shared perspective grew much darker.
At the beginning of their friendship, they would share pictures of drugs or weapons they recovered from suspects. But later they’d share trophies of police violence — gory photos from police dog bites, bruises on men Rombough shot with the less-lethal weapon — sandwiched between similar plans for the future.
“My viewpoint of the population changed,” said Rombough, who would regularly send racist texts to colleagues referring to Black people as “gorillas,” along with racist jokes. He later added: “I was frustrated that the arrests I was making weren’t being charged, and people weren’t being convicted.”
Asked flatly during cross-examination if he was a racist, Rombough denied it. But then Amiri’s lawyer took things a step further by asking him if his decision to shoot two Black men with a less-lethal launcher was motivated by their skin color.
“That played a role in it. In my experience, that demographic tended to carry a lot more firearms,” Rombough said.
Rombough’s resentment was compounded when COVID-19 restrictions reduced the number of offenses that could land people in jail, he said. At a certain point, amidst his disillusionment, “we were no longer doing arrests, we were dishing out punishment.”
By the time the FBI raided Antioch and Pittsburg cops’ homes and workplaces as part of a massive corruption probe in early 2022, Rombough was making a shrine to police brutality in his home. He testified he would collect foam rubber rounds on his mantle, along with pictures of the people he shot, annotated with the dates.
For hours Thursday, Rombough read from thousands of pages of text exchanges between himself and Amiri. In one, he talked about plans to “f— someone up and hopefully you get a bite,” referring to Amiri’s use of his police dog, Purcy.
“Exactly, blood for blood,” Amiri replied, and Rombough responded in kind.
Cheng asked Rombough if this was a joke, likely seeking to undercut Amiri’s planned defense that these texts and others were mere “s— talking.”
“No,” Rombough flatly replied. “I was hoping to be able to get Amiri action with Purcy.” He went on to describe how Amiri appeared to be “excited” and showed “some sort of relief” after the dog bit someone for the first time.
The two also bantered back and forth over text about falsifying police records while conspiring to make sure their actions weren’t caught on cameras the department required them to wear, according to court testimony. Rombough regarded those body-worn cameras as “a pain in the butt,” he said, because “I felt the police department would use it to write us up any way they could.” Amiri, he claimed, “was kind of on the same page.”
During cross-examination, Amiri’s lawyer, Paul Goyette , questioned Rombough about the dangers of policing a city plagued by gangs and constant violent crimes. The former cop said he has watched people die and seen “the most horrible things you can imagine.”
“When you’re surrounded by horrible things on a daily basis, it corrupts your brain,” said Rombough. “The environment of the city, the environment of the police department. … We just never got a break from it.”
Every day before work, Rombough said, “I would make peace with not being able to come home every single day.” Goyette asked him to repeat that remark then asked him if the psychological effect led him down the path that ended with the trial.
“I believe that it did,” Rombough said.
Rombough and Amiri were among 14 ex-Antioch and Pittsburg cops charged in 2023 with a range of crimes, including civil rights violations, steroid distribution, firearms offenses, fraud and bribery. Until Wednesday, Amiri was joined at trial by former colleague Devon Wenger, a military veteran who maintains he was dragged into this case after angering higher-ups by trying to raise alarm bells about Rombough and others. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White declared a mistrial for Wenger. He will be tried separately later.
On Thursday morning, Rombough acknowledged the pain and harm he caused to a city he was sworn to protect. He said he’s come to realize that “I’ve caused irreparable damage to the organization and police officers in general,” Rombough said.
“It may never come back, the trust in the community,” he said.
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