Senate OKs new rules on police use of force

SACRAMENTO — Calling the bill a national model to confront racial bias in police shootings, the California Senate sent the governor legislation Monday to tighten the rules for when officers can open fire on suspects.

Senators voted nearly unanimously to approve the bill after a year of protests and contentious meetings between law enforcement groups and civil rights advocates.

The bill, AB 392, would give California one of the tightest laws in the nation regulating police use of force. It passed after supporters and police reached a compromise in the state Assembly six weeks ago.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the measure, which he previously endorsed and called “an important bill, one that will help restore community trust in our criminal justice system.”

Several senators who spoke in support of the bill called it a starting place to confront inherent biases that have led to the fatal shootings of countless unarmed black people, who they said were often young men holding cell phones.

“We are living in a tinderbox of racially moti

vated tension in our country,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell, DLos Angeles. “It’s time for us to enact a statewide policy that will, without question, save human life.”

The Senate voted 343 to pass the bill, and lawmakers who spoke on the floor were largely supportive.

The bill would direct police to “use deadly force only when necessary in defense of human life” and, when possible, to use techniques to deescalate the situation before shooting. It does not explicitly define what would be considered “necessary,” though courts could consider the actions of both the officer and the suspect when determining whether the force was justified.

Current law on police use of force, established by a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases, considers whether a “reasonable” officer in similar circumstances would have acted the same way.

State Sen. Nancy Skinner, DBerkeley, said the bill confronts racist biases that the country, including the criminal justice system, was founded on. She said the research is clear that racial assumptions put black residents more at risk.

“We do not want this just to be symbolic,” Skinner said. “We actually want to change that bias, and thus reduce the deaths.”

Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, DSan Diego, began pushing for changes last year, following the fatal shooting by Sacramento police of Stephon Clark in March 2018. She worked with the American Civil Liber

“We change actually that bias, want and to thus reduce the deaths.” State Sen. Nancy Skinner

ties Union of California and activists whose family members were killed by law enforcement.

On Monday, lawmakers praised Weber as they debated the bill on the floor. Several lawmakers hugged Weber and shook her hand after the vote.

The measure originally faced protests from law enforcement organizations, which argued that the “necessary” standard would put officers in danger.

Those groups dropped their objections when Weber scaled back some of the language, including a rule that officers exhaust all alternatives before opening fire.

But some groups that originally supported the measure, including Black Lives Matter, withdrew their support after it was amended. Some objected to a change that linked the measure to another with funding for police training. Chronicle reporter Alexei Koseff

contributed to this article.