Newsom vetoes some police reform bills
Many advocates were disappointed by the vetoing of legislation designed to reimagine the role police play.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a modest slate of bills meant to overhaul California law enforcement this week, but disappointed many police reform advocates by vetoing other legislation designed to reimagine the role police play in addressing societal problems.
Civil liberties groups and many who protested in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd this summer had urged California and its Democratdominated state government to take far more aggressive action this year to roll back law enforcement powers that they say enable racist police practices. But many of the policies they supported failed amid a chaotic end to the Legislature’s session and stiff resistance from the state’s powerful police unions.
Newsom and other lawmakers have touted the more limited legislation they passed as steps toward meaningful changes to law enforcement, and pledged to do more in the coming years.
“None of these bills are easy,” Newsom said in a Zoom-based bill- signing ceremony Wednesday afternoon. “So many constituencies, so many nuances, a lot of folks pushing back — but I think under the circumstances, the fact that we were able to get this far is a very big deal.
“I recognize we have a lot more to do in this space and we are not walking away from this responsibility,” he added, pounding the desk for emphasis.
One of the new laws Newsom signed bans officers from using the carotid “sleeper” restraint, a neck hold that can turn deadly when it is applied improperly. Newsom had earlier this summer directed the state’s law enforcement standards commission to stop offering training on the tactic, and many departments already prohibited it.
Another new law requires California’s attorney general, rather than local authorities, to conduct the investigations into certain deadly police shootings, in a bid to improve public trust of those investigations. A third bolsters the authority of civilian watchdog panels that oversee sheriff’s departments.
Asm. Kevin McCarty, DSacramento had tried in prior years to gain support for independent review of police shootings, but the outrage this summer propelled it to finally pass.
“This has been an effort before George Floyd — but really the murder of George Floyd before our eyes put these issues in the spotlight, and it allowed us to get bipartisan support, which I’m proud of,” McCarty said during the signing ceremony.
The shooting investigations bill reflected the compromises that defined this legislative session. Unlike earlier versions, the new law only requires the attorney general to investigate fatal police shootings of unarmed people, as opposed to all deaths at the hands of police. And it is contingent on lawmakers providing funding for the Department of Justice to conduct those investigations, estimated at $80 million per year.