Lawmakers target officers who engage in serious misconduct

SACRAMENTO — California law enforcement officers could be stripped of their license to carry a badge if they engage in serious misconduct, including excessive force, racial bias and dishonesty, under legislation approved Friday by the state Assembly after an emotional debate.

The new measure was approved by the Assembly on a largely party-line vote of 46-18 and next goes back to the Senate, which had passed the bill before it was amended. It was opposed by dozens of law enforcement groups as well as Republican lawmakers who said it is overbroad and creates a system biased against police officers.

The measure is one of a series of bills that were introduced after the killing of George Floyd last year by a Minneapolis police officer that sparked demonstrations throughout the country calling for stricter accountability for law enforcement agencies.

State Sen. Steven Bradford, a Gardena Democrat, said his legislation is needed to prevent police officers who are fired, resign or are disciplined for misconduct from moving to another law enforcement agency and continuing to carry a badge and gun.

“California is able to revoke the certification or licenses of bad doctors, lawyers and even barbers, but is unable to decertify police officers who have broken the law and violated the public trust,” Bradford said. “This is all about treating people fairly and holding those who don’t accountable.”

Currently, 46 other states have rules preventing abusive officers from switching jobs, but Bradford said California is “so far behind” on the issue. A similar bill stalled in the California

Legislature last year.

The bill gives new powers to the state’s 17-member Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training, or POST, to investigate and suspend or revoke the certification of peace officers who are terminated for cause or found to have engaged in “serious misconduct.”

Such misconduct would include excessive force, dishonesty, sexual assault and acts of bias on the basis of factors including race, sexual orientation and gender.

The bill would require the governor to appoint a ninemember Peace Officer Standards Accountability Advisory Board by Jan. 1, 2023, within POST.

The board, which is made up of two law enforcement officers, one civilian oversight attorney and six members of the public, would review POST’s investigation of misconduct allegations and recommend whether the commission should seek decertification.

SB 2 was opposed last week by law enforcement groups including the Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs Association, the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, the California Peace Officers Association and the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Like others, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents 77,000 public safety officers, said it supports revoking licenses for officers who engage in gross misconduct.

However, the association criticized the bill for creating a nine-person panel to oversee the process that includes seven members of the public that would not be required to have law enforcement expertise or experience.

“Ultimately, this bill creates an inherently amateurish and potentially biased panel to oversee the process of revoking an officer’s license to practice law enforcement, ignoring our country’s tradition of due process and subjecting officers to a biased review of their actions where guilt is assumed, and the deck is stacked against them,” the group said in a letter to lawmakers. Assemblyman Kelly Seyarto, a Murrieta Republican, said he supports adopting a decertification mechanism but that he voted against the bill because he believes it creates a system biased against law enforcement officers. He complained that the nine-member advisory board would only include two representatives of law enforcement.

“The composition of the advisory board is grossly unfair,” Seyarto told his colleagues.

He also objected that the measure provides for including people who are the victims of police violence. Seyarto noted that is not the practice on boards that discipline doctors.

“Their boards don’t have people who have been adversely affected by a bad surgery,” he said. “This creates bias.”

The floor debate was emotional at times, with legislators speaking the names of Black men and women who had been killed by police officers in California and elsewhere.