California bills would take badges from misbehaving officers

SACRAMENTO >> California would start licensing law enforcement officers, create a way to end their careers for misbehavior including racial bias, and make it easier to sue them for monetary damages under an expanded version of legislation that died at the end of last year’s legislative session, supporters said Tuesday.

California is one of just four states without a way to decertify police officers, alongside Hawaii, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

“These are officers who have abused their authority and violated the public trust, and we all agree they must be held accountable,” said state Sen. Steven Bradford, who is carrying the most sweeping of several decertification proposals. “We (in California) claim to be a leader in all things — we shouldn’t be an outlier when it comes to police reform.”

The bill by Bradford, who heads the Senate Public Safety Committee, would require the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to issue each officer a proof of eligibility or basic certificate. Currently, the state licenses more than 200 professions and trades including doctors, lawyers, and contractors, but not law enforcement officers.

Bradford’s bill would give the commission the power to investigate officers and revoke their eligibility for wrongs including using excessive force, sexual assault, making a false arrest or report, or participating in a law enforcement gang. Some of those investigations could be retroactive under his revised proposal.

Police could also lose their badges for “acts demonstrating bias” based on race, religion, sexual orientation or mental disability, among other criteria.

Bradford said in his bill that three of every four unarmed persons killed by police were people of color.

“Decertifying police officers (who abuse their power) ... is key to building trust between the police and the communities and changing the culture of policing in this state,” said Cephus Johnson, a criminal justice reform advocate widely known as Uncle Bobby X whose nephew, Oscar Grant, was killed by transit police in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009.

Two bills, one by Assemblyman Jim Cooper, himself a former sheriff’s captain, and the other by fellow Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas, both have a much stronger law enforcement representation on the statewide panel considering decertification than would Bradford’s bill. Neither includes the licensing or lawsuit provisions in Bradford’s bill.

The third bill, by Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, would require local law enforcement agencies to complete misconduct investigations even if the officer resigns. The practice of ending investigation after an officer resigns has allowed questionable officers to simply move to another department.