Bill would enable AG to look into police shootings

SACRAMENTO — California’s attorney general could investigate local police shootings under a new bill by a Sacramento lawmaker.

Democrat Kevin McCarty’s Assembly Bill 284 would allow local police departments or district attorneys to ask Atty. Gen. Xavier Beccera’s office to independently investigate police shootings of civilians.

The legislation was prompted by high-profile police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in New York City and last summer’s shooting of Joseph Mann, a mentally ill homeless man, in Sacramento, McCarty’s office said. In all three cases, prosecutors declined to charge the officers.

“There is a growing skepticism and a perceived conflict of interest of the current process of local district attorneys investigating local police,” said a fact sheet on the bill provided by McCarty’s office. “Given that they work so closely, it is a valid question of whether this is the most transparent process for the public. There is a growing appetite, both at the national and local level, to create a better and more transparent system for [police shootings] that is fair to police, families and the community in order to restore public trust.”

McCarty’s bill would make state investigations voluntary in these cases and would be implemented only if lawmakers also give Beccera’s office money to pay for the effort.

In 2015, McCarty tried to pass legislation that would have made state investigations of local police shootings mandatory, but that bill failed to make it out of legislative committees. This year, lawmakers have generally scaled back previous efforts to change the state’s rules governing police discipline and transparency.