SAN DIEGO POLITICIANS NEED TO MAKE MAJOR POLICE REFORMS
When I look at the things that happened in 2020, I have to say that the COVID-19 pandemic is the first thing that comes to my mind. When the coronavirus hit California, a state of emergency was declared on March 4, and a mandatory stay at home order was issued on March 19. While California was on lockdown and struggling to f latten the curve, there was an impending crisis that no one was preparing for. On May 25, our nation watched while Minneapolis law enforcement officer Derek Chauvin killed Mr. George Floyd by pressuring his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The death of a Black man being killed barbarically by a White police officer enraged our nation to the point of many people calling for police reform, including many politicians.
It was exhilarating to hear a majority of Americans say policing needed major changes. One Gallup poll found that nine in 10 Democrats surveyed in late June and early July said policing needed major changes. Maybe that’s why we heard politicians all over our country, especially Democrats, express the same opinion; nevertheless, many of these same politicians have made no or minor changes concerning police reform.
I’m sure if you talk to any politician, especially Democrats in San Diego, they will tell you they have made major changes. The San Digeo County Board of Supervisors approved Supervisor Nathan Fletcher’s police reform package that included strengthening the authority and independence of the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB), creating a countywide Office of Equity and Racial Justice, and launching a mobile crisis response team (MCRT) without law enforcement.
The county’s police reforms will not bring the major changes that are needed in policing. If the CLERB is going to be effective, its authority must include the ability to discipline sheriff deputies, and have an independent prosecutor. The MCRT will fail because nine in every 10 stops by the Sheriff ’s Department was initiated by the officer rather than initiated in response to calls for service.
Politicians on the San Diego City Council voted unanimously to put Measure B on the ballot. Measure B was passed by voters and purported to create better community oversight of police officers with a new Commisison on Police Practices that will have more ability to get things done. Needless to say, Measure B is a minor police reform that fails to meet the same requirements that renders the CLERB ineffective in its authority and independence.
The actions of the County Board of Supervisors and San Diego City Council on police reform, thus far, illustrate how politicians will implement policy that takes little effort and has no teeth. Yet these local politicians will use the passage of Measure B, mobile crisis response teams and the creation of a racial equity department as a mask for progress in police reform. Our nation and city need more than symbolic changes. We need real police reform, and now is the time to make it happen.
If nine in 10 Democrats said major police changes are needed, why have Democrats made only minor changes? One needs only to look at police unions. How can our local politicians bring major police reform that is needed when they are taking money from police unions and their political action committees? A similar question applies to many of our state assemblymembers. How many City Council members are inf luenced by or too fearful of the police association to take action that will bring major police reform?
Criminal justice reform (including police reform) is a civil rights issue that must be addressed nationally. President-elect Joe Biden won the election in part because of the Mexican American vote in Arizona and Nevada, and the Black vote in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. While there is a divide between progressives and the Clinton/Biden Democrats, if these politicians don’t get their act together and make major changes in police reform, the Democrats risk losing everything in four years. They must understand that the protests that followed Mr. Floyd’s death were the largest protests our nation has ever seen.
Reimagining policing is not an easy task, and it’s going to take district attorneys, police chiefs, sheriffs, attorneys general and politicians to listen to and work with the community on solutions that will bring major change. Real solutions are holding police accountable for abuse and brutality, collecting better data, reducing the number of people the police shoot and kill on a national level by 75 percent, ending qualified immunity, creating a national police licensing board to govern who can be a police officer, reducing the role of police in people’s everyday life, ending police use of gang databases, and ending predictive policing technology.
It’s time for major police reform, and the Democrats must come together and act now.
Bowser