PITTSBURG — Two former Pittsburg police officers claim in new lawsuits that they were instructed to falsify crime reports and refrain from documenting use of force — all to provide a rosier picture of the city’s public safety.

In his suit against the Pittsburg Police Department, Officer Michael Sibbitt alleged his supervisors refused to arrest a gang member wanted for questioning in a Pinole shooting and the assault of an Antioch police officer because the crimes happened outside Pittsburg. Days later, the fugitive became a lead suspect in another shooting.

In addition to the Pittsburg Police Department, the federal lawsuits filed last week by Sibbitt and Beth Terwilliger, formerly Beth Ingram, name Chief Brian Addington and, in Sibbitt’s case, his supervisor, Capt. Michael Perry. They both allege wrongful termination and whistleblower retaliation and seek back pay and compensatory damages, among other claims.

Sibbitt and Terwilliger are the second and third officers to take legal action against the embattled department over manipulated crime stats. Their lawsuits bolster allegations made earlier this year by former Lt. Wade Derby, who also filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the city, and another former officer. In his lawsuit, Derby detailed a department policy that classified certain cases as “suspicious circumstances” rather than felonies to avoid reporting them to the FBI and have them counted as part of the city’s crime rate.

The Contra Costa District Attorney’s and Sheriff’s offices investigated Pittsburg’s 204 suspicious circumstance reports in 2015 and found 103 were incorrectly classified. However, the investigators determined that there was insufficient evidence the department deliberately falsified the reports. The audit found that even if the erroneous reports had been properly recorded as felonies, the city’s crime rate would not have changed much.

But the claims by Sibbitt and Terwilliger further buttress what Derby and other officers allege: Crime stats were falsified not only by classifying them as suspicious circumstances, but through other means.

Sibbitt and Terwilliger were hired by Pittsburg police on the same day in September 2012 and often worked in the field together.

According to court records, Sibbitt, who had worked as a Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office deputy for six years before joining Pittsburg, said he quickly realized his new agency handled reports differently.

During training, his supervisors instructed him and other officers to classify an incident as a felony only if an arrest had been made and if witnesses were readily available and willing to testify. He alleged officers were trained to “discount felonies to misdemeanors,” particularly if they were “wobblers,” crimes straddling the line between minor or more serious offenses. He also alleged supervisors instructed them to funnel potential felonies into the “suspicious circumstance” category.

“(Pittsburg police), by mandating these lesser crime classifications and instructing officers to redact incident reports, artificially spiked its department’s crime solving rate, misrepresented the City of Pittsburg’s safety, and fraudulently received federal funds,” Sibbitt claims in the lawsuit.

When he protested, he said his training officer told him: “That’s the way we do business. Don’t complain.”

Addington and other Pittsburg police brass Thursday said they could not comment on pending litigation and personnel issues.

On June 18, 2014, Sibbitt and Terwilliger were placed on administrative leave after an investigation into their alleged use of flashlights to beat suspects. A month later, they said, they were told they could fight the “alleged misconduct” and be terminated and have criminal charges filed, or resign and the criminal probe would be dropped and the internal affairs report would be “buried.”

On Aug. 4, 2014, both resigned “under duress,” Terwilliger alleged in her lawsuit.

In their lawsuits, Sibbitt and Terwilliger address the flashlight incidents, saying the equipment was used appropriately during struggles with suspects. The officers allege Sgt. William Hatcher ordered Sibbitt to remove the reference to flashlights from his report, as part of the department’s practice of hiding the use of force by officers. Sibbitt acknowledged referring to the incident by the slang “flashlight therapy” in electronic messages. He said an officer slammed a restrained suspect’s face into a car door in view of supervisors, but nothing was done.

In fact, after the April 27, 2014, incident involving a flashlight where they found a replica handgun and had a struggle with a suspect, Terwilliger said Hatcher told her to remove the handcuffs, release the suspect, record the BB gun as “found property,” and not to document the incident at all.

Such “field releases” were common practice and taught by training officers, Sibbitt alleged. One instructor told him Pittsburg police often release suspects in cases that might not result in felony convictions because the department could avoid paying booking fees and time-consuming follow-up investigations.

“These cases will reveal that they were scapegoats, not rogue cops,” said attorney Scott Brown, who represents Sibbitt and Terwilliger. “Both were outstanding officers who had problems with the department’s policies of instructing officers to downgrade crime classifications and ignore investigations that would not likely result in felony convictions.”

Among the other allegations in Sibbitt’s lawsuit:

In 2013, Sibbitt investigated a shooting into a house in which a young girl was sleeping, but could not find any eyewitnesses. Sibbitt documented the crime as a felony, but Sgt. Brian Mathews instructed him to redact his report and write it as a misdemeanor, “negligent discharge of a firearm.”

In 2013, Sibbitt said Perry ordered a weeklong surveillance of a pest-control business by the Street Crimes Unit. The business, in which Sibbitt said Perry “had a vested real estate interest,” had been vandalized, and gasoline was siphoned from vehicles on the property. Sibbitt complained it was a waste of resources.

In 2014, Sibbitt learned from an informant that a gang member with an outstanding warrant for assaulting an Antioch cop who was also wanted for questioning in a Pinole shooting was staying at a safe house in Pittsburg. He alleges he was told that because the crimes happened outside of Pittsburg, the department would not pursue it. A few weeks later, the same man was identified as a lead suspect in an attempted murder in Pittsburg. When Sibbitt complained that the shooting could have been prevented, he said he was told to butt out of the investigation. He later learned of the gang member’s whereabouts, but told sheriff’s deputies instead, who arrested the suspect.

Contact Matthias Gafni at 925-952-5026. Follow him at Twitter.com/mgafni.