A federal judge Friday told attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department and the territory that the V.I. Police Department is on the “right track” and “right path” to achieving compliance with a 16-year-old consent decree.

A hearing at the federal courthouse on St. Thomas Friday largely focused on findings outlined in a report filed in U.S. District Court last month by court-appointed monitor Sydney Roberts. That report covered the second quarter of 2025 and found that VIPD had made progress toward compliance with three outstanding paragraphs related to citizen complaints, officers’ use of force and management and supervision.

The monitoring period covered by Roberts’s report ended on May 31, but several questions asked by Chief Judge Robert Molloy hinted at more recent incidents. In July, officers shot and killed Alejandro Torres III in the LBJ Gardens neighborhood on St. Croix. One month later, officers on St. Thomas responding to a burglary call shot and killed 36-year-old Tyler Simpson. In the parlance of law enforcement, officers firing a gun constitutes a “Level 1” use of force. The U.S. Justice Department acknowledged Simpson’s killing in a status report filed this week, writing that “three VIPD officers fatally shot a suspect while they were investigating an alleged burglary in progress.”

“The investigation of this Level 1 use of force is ongoing, but VIPD has informed the [Independent Monitoring Team] and the United States that it has already incorporated some lessons learned from its initial review of the incident into upcoming firearms training,” attorneys with the department’s Civil Rights Division wrote. “In the past, such a response might only have occurred after VIPD had completed a full investigation of the incident, a process that can take several months to more than a year. We commend VIPD for its proactive response to this incident.”

On Friday, VIPD’s internal affairs director, Vivianne Newton, said the department had five Level 1 use-of-force cases pending. Three others were presented to the department’s Force Review Board in July, and two of those were closed. Molloy later asked Deputy Commissioner Jason Marsh, who heads VIPD’s professional standards division, whether he’d observed any patterns or trends related to officers’ use of force at the highest level in the first half of 2025. Marsh said the number of incidents wasn’t much higher than in previous years and pointed to the need for more training.

That exchange came after Molloy noted adjudicating previous cases during which it was discovered that police officers had failed to activate their body-worn cameras. He asked Marsh if that was “an area of concern.” Marsh said it wasn’t. Molloy followed up by asking when the cameras are supposed to be activated, and Marsh said it’s supposed to happen when an officer begins engaging with a civilian and that they can be turned off after the encounter ends.

After former Police Commissioner Ray Martinez fired his gun while officers apprehended a suspect in March 2024, Justice Department attorneys reported to the court that VIPD “has revised its body-worn camera (BWC) policy to ensure that officers do not intentionally obstruct BWCs or position themselves to impede the BWC’s recording of an incident,” according to an October 2024 status report.

“Further, VIPD officers will no longer be expected to charge their cameras at home, as VIPD is placing docking stations in each zone and requiring officers to dock their BWCs at the end of their shift to ensure that they are charged, and that recorded videos are downloaded once their shifts end.”

The Source has repeatedly requested body-worn camera footage captured by the officers involved in Torres’s and Simpson’s killings, as well as VIPD’s body-worn camera policy under U.S. Virgin Islands public records laws. On Wednesday, VIPD spokesperson Glen Dratte said there are two investigations related to Torres’s case — one “criminal” and one “internal/administrative.”

“Therefore, the bodycam footage is not available, audio, or visual,” he said. “We are reviewing the policy and will get back to you as soon as possible.”

Asked about the Source’s request after Friday’s hearing, Police Commissioner Mario Brooks said the department is working on releasing the policy. Brooks noted the need to protect police officers and referenced their collective bargaining agreement with the Virgin Islands Government, through which the government could be sued. Addressing the consent decree more broadly, Brooks said the goal is to have a “constitutional” police force, and he credited VIPD personnel with bringing the department within sight of full compliance.

During the hearing, Molloy also asked Marsh whether anyone at VIPD keeps track of court decisions that affect law enforcement procedure. That question came hours after the Virgin Islands Daily News broke the story that a V.I. Superior Court judge threw out charges against three men in July after finding that police improperly searched their car because they supposedly smelled marijuana.

“The possession of marijuana in the Virgin Islands, however, is now a presumably legal activity,” Judge Ernest Morris Jr. wrote in a July 21 opinion. “In states where the use of marijuana has been legalized, courts have held that the smell of marijuana alone is not enough to justify a warrantless search.”

Morris further questioned the sworn statements of a Special Operations Bureau K-9 handler, Raheem Benjamin.

“When Officer Benjamin approached the vehicle, all of the windows were partially down, and there were already four other officers surrounding the vehicle and interacting with the occupants,” he wrote. “If the smell of marijuana was strong, as alleged by Officer Benjamin, it is highly unlikely that none of the other four officers who approached the vehicle before Benjamin would have made note of the smell. Although the Court does ‘not evaluate probable cause in hindsight, based on what a search does or does not turn up,’ the fact that no marijuana was found in the vehicle or on the person of any of the Defendants further belies Officer Benjamin’s testimony that he smelled a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle.”

Amid questioning from Molloy Friday, Marsh said the department does get briefed on court rulings and he acknowledged that VIPD maintains a so-called “Brady List” — an informal list of non-credible police officers typically kept by prosecutors — which the department shares with the V.I. Justice Department. The list is named for the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brady v. Maryland, which found that law enforcement personnel have to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to criminal defendants.

Molloy said before adjourning that VIPD, in its current state, was a far cry from the one he grew up with and heard stories about in the ‘90s and that it was “worth repeating that this department is much further along than it was in 2008.”