Bill to elevate investigations of killings by police advances
SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers advanced a proposed change to how police shootings are investigated in California after an emotional debate Sunday.
A bill that would require the state attorney general to investigate any incident in which a law enforcement officer kills an unarmed civilian passed the state Senate on a bipartisan vote of 331.
It must still clear the Assembly before the end of the legislative session Monday to go to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The measure by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty marks the Sacramento Democrat’s third attempt in five years to move investigations of police shootings out of the hands of local prosecutors, who critics argue are not well equipped to handle them because of their close relationships with law enforcement agencies.
“We must have independent investigations,” said Sen. Bill Dodd, DNapa, who presented the bill, AB1506, in the Senate. “Justice must be served.”
Previous efforts stalled in the face of opposition from Attorney General Xavier Becerra and his predecessor, Kamala Harris, who have been reluctant to intervene in what they consider to be local investigations. Major statewide law enforcement groups are against the change.
But the bill gained momentum this year amid protests over police brutality and racial injustice. Supporters have pointed to the handling of the Sean Monterrosa shooting in June as an example of its necessity: Monterrosa was kneeling on the ground when he was fatally shot by a Vallejo police officer, who says he mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s sweatshirt pocket for a handgun. When the Solano County district attorney tried to hand off the investigation to Becerra, the attorney general rejected the request.
While some Republican legislators expressed skepticism about the proposal, the only one to vote against it was Sen. Jim Nielsen of Gerber (Tehama County), who called it an overthetop attack on law enforcement. He said those voting for the bill would be hypocrites if they attended the next memorial for fallen police officers, which is held annually outside the state Capitol.
“Don’t embarrass yourselves going in front of those grieving family members — the weeping wives, the stunned, staringintospace children,” he said.
That earned an angry rebuke from Sen. Steven Bradford, DGardena (Los Angeles County), one of only two Black members of the Senate. He said AB1506 was a propolice measure because it would help get rid of bad cops.
“If white Americans were being killed at the same rate as African Americans and Latinos are being killed, not only in this state but across this country, you’d be calling for the disbandment of police departments all across this state,” Bradford said. “But because it’s Black and brown people, people that you have never truly ever valued their life in this country, it’s like, ‘Oh, they must have deserved it.’ ”
The Senate sent another policing measure to the Assembly on Sunday: AB1196 by Assemblyman Mike Gipson, DLos Angeles, which would prohibit carotid holds in which an officer puts pressure on the side of a suspect’s neck, cutting off blood flow and knocking the person unconscious.
The holds have already been banned in some cities, including San Francisco, because people on whom they are used can be suffocated. Gov. Gavin Newsom called on police departments to stop teaching them in June, after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
The Legislature has yet to take up the most farreaching proposal that lawmakers have put forth to overhaul policing practices in the wake of Floyd’s death. Bradford’s SB731, which would create a statewide process to decertify officers who break the law or commit ethical violations, is still awaiting a vote. It will die if it does not clear both houses of the Legislature by midnight Monday.