Newsom signs modest slate of police reform bills

While the results fell far short of what activists had hoped for in the midst of a nationwide movement to rein in police power, California lawmakers touted their steps in that direction Wednesday as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills meant to overhaul law enforcement in the state.

One of the new laws bans officers from using the carotid “sleeper” restraint, a neck hold that can turn deadly when it is applied improperly. Newsom had earlier this summer directed the state’s law enforcement standards commission to stop offering training on the tactic, and many departments had already banned it.

Another law requires California’s attorney general, rather than local authorities, to conduct the investigations into certain deadly police shootings, in a bid to improve public trust of those investigations. And a third bolsters the authority of civilian panels overseeing county sheriff’s departments.

Still, the ambitions of civil liberties groups and police reform activists had been bigger in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and the massive protests it sparked throughout California.

Lawmakers this summer proposed a much more wide-reaching slate of bills that would have created a process for permanently revoking the badges of problem officers, bolstered public access to police misconduct records, required officers to intervene if they witness excessive force, and sharply limited the use of crowd control tactics like rubber bullets and tear gas. But amid a chaotic end to the Legislature’s session as well as resistance from the state’s powerful law enforcement groups, those proposals never made it to Newsom’s desk.

“None of these bills are easy,” Newsom said in a Zoom-based bill-signing ceremony Wednesday afternoon. “So many constituencies, so many nuances, a lot of folks pushing back — but I think under the circumstances, the fact that we were able to get this far is a very big deal.”