California’s Bonta needs to step up
Another troubling deadly shooting by Bay Area police. Another promise by California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate. And, if history is an indicator, another case that his office will take years to resolve.
This time the shooting is in Martinez. Video shows officers firing at a car as it drives away. One man, Tommy Wilson Jr., 22, was critically injured but is recovering. He had been shot twice in the back. His brother, Tahmon Wilson, 20, is dead. He had been shot in the back of the head.
It’s hard to understand how firing into a moving vehicle as suspects are trying to flee can be justified. It’s hard to understand how it’s OK for an officer to shoot someone from behind. That’s why an independent investigation is so badly needed.
Hours after the killings, Bonta announced that his office would conduct a probe as required by state law. The law stems from legislation that Bonta, when he was an assembly member, and more than 40 other legislators introduced just three weeks after a Minneapolis officer murdered George Floyd.
Jumping on the police accountability bandwagon was good politics in that moment in 2020. But three years later, Bonta has been pathetically slow to carry out the legal mandate of the law he championed. The delays must stop.
Assembly Bill 1506 requires his office to investigate fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians. In July 2021, Bonta announced that 27 special agents and six supervisory agents would begin conducting investigations of an expected 40-50 police shootings each year.
“One of the most important tasks ahead for public safety and our society is building and maintaining trust between our communities and law enforcement,” Bonta said in a press statement. “Impartial, fair investigations and independent reviews of officer-involved shootings are one essential component for achieving that trust.”
That was less than three months after Bonta had been appointed attorney general to fill the post left by Xavier Becerra’s departure for Washington to become President Biden’s health secretary. That was back when Bonta was gearing up for the 2022 election for a full fouryear term.
Since then, Bonta and his office have dropped the ball. Their stated goal is to complete the investigations within one year. It hasn’t come close. The office has finished just three investigations, all Southern California cases. It’s been about five months since the last report was issued.
Meanwhile, 45 other cases, some more than two years old, are officially “under investigation” — and the list of unresolved cases keeps growing. It includes Bay Area cases from San Francisco, the unincorporated East Bay community of Ashland, Newark and Antioch.
The delay leaves families without resolution about the killings of their kin. The pending investigations have been used by some police agencies as justification for withholding release of records and videos of shootings. Civil lawsuits by family members have been delayed. A sheriff’s deputy who fired the fatal shot in one case is back on patrol.
The official explanation for the delays in Bonta’s office is that its priority is “fair, thorough, complete and comprehensive” investigations. That’s a good goal. But at a certain point the delays undermine justice.
Officials also say the office hasn’t been provided with the full funding it has sought to do the job. But they didn’t readily have numbers to support the claim. Besides, it’s hard to understand how, with a staff of 33 people and an annual caseload that turned out to be only about half of what was originally forecast, there have been almost no results so far.
Unfortunately, when it comes to police accountability, Bonta seems unwilling to walk the talk. He has managed to turn a program that was supposed to ensure police accountability into yet another shield against transparency.
It’s shameful.