California may boost state oversight when police use of deadly force
If officers shot and killed Sean Monterrosa in Connecticut or New York — instead of in Vallejo, California — a state agency would investigate the June 2 incident, when a police officer reportedly mistook a hammer in the 22-year-old Latino man’s sweatshirt for a gun and fired shots through the windshield of his police vehicle.
If officers shot and killed Michael Thomas in Georgia — instead of in Lancaster, California — a grand jury could investigate a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy’s claim that Thomas reached for the deputy’s gun during a domestic disturbance call inside the 62-year-old Black man’s home on June 11.
If officers shot and killed Sunshine Sallac in Utah, Wisconsin or Illinois — instead of in Lake Forest, California — an outside agency would investigate the June 24 incident, in which Orange County sheriff’s deputies responded to a residential burglary call and opened fire on the 22-yearold woman of Asian heritage, who they said was standing across the street holding a gun.
Instead, in all three cases and in dozens other California cases in recent years, the departments that hired and trained the officers involved in fatal shootings will determine what happens next. It’s standard protocol in this state, despite the fact that many legislators, local politicians, the families of the victims and, in some cases, law enforcement representatives themselves continue to call for greater outside scrutiny.
As the country contemplates the national ramifications of George Floyd’s final nine minutes of life in Minneapolis, California has its own version of the question: If this state is the nation’s laboratory for progressive laws, why has it been unable to keep the police from policing themselves?
“This one is actually embarrassing for California,” said Democratic Assemblymember Kevin McCarty of Sacramento, who is trying for the third time in five years to pass a law requiring the state’s attorney general to probe deadly officer encounters. “I think it’s a common sense reform that’s ripe for the taking this year in California.”
Yet California’s past three attorney generals — including former Gov. Jerry Brown and the state’s first two attorney generals of color, Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, all Democrats — have been reluctant to take on this responsibility, despite already having the authority to do so.
“We are neither equipped nor resourced to take over for the 58 district attorneys that role,” Becerra said in answer to a question from CalMatters during a Wednesday press conference. “On a limited occasion, we do. And usually it’s because a district attorney or his or her office must recuse himself, herself, itself from the prosecution or decision because of some conflict. Or because there is an abusive discretion on the part of the office of the DA. Or some other very exceptional circumstance.”
State oversight — by invitation only?
Nonetheless, McCarty‘s Assembly Bill 1506, which the California Senate is to consider when the Legislature returns from break, is more modest than previous iterations he’s carried that have failed. He’s abandoned the idea of requiring the attorney general to oversee inquiries into every deadly police encounter.
Instead this year’s version would create a new division within the state Justice Department to investigate deadly police encounters only if the local policing agency or district attorney actually asked for such an inquiry. The new division would also have the responsibility to prosecute any wrongdoing it uncovers.
The idea is patterned after laws in five other states: Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Thus far, 43 other lawmakers have co-sponsored the new measure and McCarty is confident that, unlike with his earlier attempts, locally elected district attorneys will endorse rather than oppose his legislation, since he sought their input. The California District Attorneys Association was set to take a vote July 9, but put it off for a week to continue working with McCarty on amendments, said Vern Pierson, the association’s president and the DA of El Dorado County.
But what about Becerra, whose department would be responsible for taking on deadly force investigations?
Thus far, he refuses to answer the question. On Wednesday, Becerra said he hadn’t been briefed on the latest version of the bill, “so it’d be hard for me to tell you where we would stand at the Department of Justice at this time.”
The pending bill says that if the Legislature doesn’t create new funding for this, the Justice Department still has to create it from existing funding — likely a more affordable prospect given the limited number of cases in which local authorities would request the state’s involvement.
At least one frustrated local prosecutor would like to see a mandate.
Last month, Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams announced on Facebook that she asked Becerra to take over the review of last month’s Vallejo police shooting of Monterrosa — and that his office denied her request.
According to the police department’s account, its officers responded to looting at a Walgreens, where an officer saw a man in a hooded sweatshirt crouch down in the parking lot and reach for his waist. The officer fired his weapon five times through the windshield of his vehicle and struck the man once. The man, identified as Monterossa, a 22-year-old resident of San Francisco, died at a local hospital. Investigators later found a 15-inch hammer in his sweatshirt pocket, but no gun.
The police shooting of Monterrosa occurred during a fraught moment for American law enforcement. The police killings of Floyd in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks in Georgia, and officers’ forceful crackdowns on demonstrations, once again forced the country into a searing examination of police violence, particularly against Black and Latino residents.
It also marked the latest in a series of controversies over the conduct of Vallejo police.
Three days after Monterrosa’s death, the Vallejo City Council asked Becerra’s office to review the shooting. The Justice Department agreed to audit the embattled department’s practices and policies, but declined to take over the shooting investigation.
“Given the totality of the circumstances, it is difficult to discern why the Attorney General’s Office is reluctant to assume the responsibility in this case when both of our offices agree that community trust in the process is of critical importance,” Abrams wrote in the June 23 Facebook post.
A state Justice Department spokesperson who declined to identify themselves wrote in an unsigned email that the department offered to provide additional people to assist with the Solano district attorney’s review, but doesn’t have the funding or the staffing to investigate every officer-involved shooting throughout the state.
“Absent a conflict of interest, an abuse of discretion, or other exceptional circumstances, Cal DOJ does not assume responsibility for local investigations or prosecutions typically handled by local authorities,” the spokesperson wrote. “We have confidence in DA Abrams’ capabilities to fully and fairly complete the investigation before her.”
Abrams contends those
“exceptional circumstances” were present due to the outpouring of calls for an independent investigation from the community and state and local officials. “While I am confident that my office can conduct a fair and thorough review of all officer involved shootings, an independent review is needed at this time to restore public trust and provide credibility, transparency, and important oversight,” she wrote.
Becerra reiterated his office’s points on Wednesday.
“We are prepared, if there is a conflict by her office in trying to handle this matter or if she abuses her discretion, then certainly, the people of Solano County who voted for the district attorney have a right to know that someone else will take over to make sure it’s a fair process,” he said. “But without those standards being met, we would essentially be substituting for the 58 DAs and we don’t have the capacity to do that.”
As for whether the attorney general, as the state’s top elected prosecutor, would come to different legal conclusions than locally elected prosecutors, that didn’t happen last year, when Becerra announced that he, too, would not prosecute two Sacramento officers who fatally shot Stephon Clark in 2018.
Both Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and Becerra determined the shooting of the unarmed Black man was lawful, even though they determined that police officers didn’t announce themselves as they rounded a blind corner in search of a vandal and opened fire on Clark, who was in his grandparents’ backyard holding a cellphone.
Under McCarty’s bill, the Attorney General’s Office would essentially take over the role of locally elected DAs, reviewing deadly force investigations by police and deciding whether to prosecute.