by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

The family of Diego Rios, who died November 28, 2025 following a Claremont Police Department traffic stop, continued to push for additional information at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Other items included the council establishing a new policy on the number of times businesses can violate their conditional use permit, and an update on hotel/motel ordinance trends.

Rios inquiries continue

Rios’ family, city residents, and Claremont Colleges students asked the council to agendize an internal review of the CPD officers involved in the November 28, 2025 traffic stop after which the 30-year-old Rancho Cucamonga man died, with a focus on Corporal Benjamin Alba. Of particular interest was 2 minutes and 25 seconds of missing footage from Alba’s body camera. The speakers also asked the council for an explanation as to why a mental health professional was not called to deescalate the encounter.

Footage from Alba’s camera, visible at vimeo.com/cityofclaremontca, was uploaded in two separate videos. The first, which captures Alba’s arrival and initial scuffle with Rios, ends with a timestamp of 15:25:45, about 20 seconds prior to when officers took Rios to the ground at 15:26:06. The second video picks up at 15:28:10 and shows officers rolling Rios on his back and beginning life-saving measures after he became unresponsive.

Regarding the missing footage, City Attorney Alisha Patterson said the city had uploaded all the materials it had available. “To my knowledge, everything we have that is in existence is currently on the city’s website,” Patterson said. “But we can follow up and see what people think is missing.”

City Manager Adam Pirrie said Tri-City Mental Health Service’s Psychiatric Assessment Care Team, which had paired mental health professionals with local law enforcement, ceased operation in late 2023 due to staffing issues.

Rios’ family spoke to ABC 7 Tuesday and said they planned to file a complaint with the city this week.

“He appeared to be having some kind of mental breakdown that day. He was experiencing a mental health crisis,” said his brother, Victor Rios Jr. “One of the police officers was actually, you know, seemed like a human. He treated him well, but the other police officer only escalated the situation.”

Patterson said agendizing an internal review for a council meeting was not possible. “We had calls for an item to be agendized so that the council could review what happened and that’ s just not something that this council is allowed to do,” she said. “There are a lot of laws and procedures and rights that police officers have that dictate how these situations are handled and it’s just not part of the legal process that these are handled publicly in a city council meeting or any other public type of meeting.”

In response to inquiries about the employment status of Alba and officer Joshua Orona, who was the first person at the scene, Patterson said, “that falls into the category of information that’s protected that we are not able to disclose at this time. The day-to-day status of peace officers is not something that we can share publicly.”

In response to calls for better transparency from the city in reviewing such incidents, Patterson said the council requested the Claremont Police Commission to agendize an item to publicly discuss “the process of how information is shared and what information can be shared relating to these kinds of incidents” at a later date.

Hotel/motel ordinance update

The council approved the quarterly update to its hotel/motel ordinance report, which tracks police activity around Claremont’s lodging businesses.

The report noted the following trends related to calls for service and welfare checks:

Motel 6

• The number of calls for service reached 340 in 2025, a 73% increase from the 196 calls in 2024.
• Police conducted 284 welfare checks at Motel 6, a 45% increase from the 195 checks in 2024.

Claremont Lodge

• 91 calls for service, up 121% from 41 in 2024.
• 50 welfare checks, up 61% from 31 in 2024.

DoubleTree

• 101 calls for service, down 14% from 118 in 2024.
• 26 welfare checks, up 550% from 4 in 2024.

Hotel Casa 425

• 15 calls for service, up 87.5% from 8 in 2024.
• 15 welfare checks, up 1,400% from 1 in 2024.

Former Knights Inn/incoming Residence Inn

• 30 calls for service, up 1,400% from 2 in 2024.
• 1 welfare check, the same as 2024.

Use permit violation threshold

The council voted unanimously to establish a threshold on the number of times businesses can violate their conditional use permit within a certain timeframe: two violations in 30 days and/or three in 180 days. It went into effect immediately.

Should a business reach the threshold, it “would automatically require City staff to schedule reviews of CUPs before the Planning Commission for potential revocation or modification,” according to a staff report. “Even without this policy, when CUP holders do not comply with their conditions of approval, City staff has discretion to bring CUPs to the Planning Commission to modify, suspend, or revoke an existing CUP. This policy would establish thresholds so that this CUP review process happens automatically after specified thresholds are reached.”

Community Development Director Brad Johnson said it was a blanket policy that applies to all businesses with such a permit, not just those applying or updating their permits as previously reported.

The next meeting of the Claremont City Council is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 10 at the council chambers, 225 W. Second St., Claremont.