Force used by police questioned
Newsom calls for statewide reforms, including ban on potentially deadly carotid holds
After over a week of watching police clash with demonstrators protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, state and local elected leaders are sharply questioning the force used by law enforcement to respond to the civil unrest that has gripped California.
“One thing that is crystal clear to me, having seen images that inspired me of peaceful protests, that protesters have the right not to be harassed,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference Friday. “Protesters have the right to protest peacefully, protesters have the right to do so without being arrested, gassed, without being shot at by projectiles.”
For the past few days, the Bay Area demonstrations, while raucous and energetic, have been largely peaceful. But that’s a stark contrast to a previous weekend filled with violent confrontations between protesters and police. Law enforcement employed liberal volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets to control crowds and clear streets, and only sometimes did that force come in response to destructive looting or bottles and rocks thrown by demonstrators.
Newsom said he will push for a new statewide standard that raises the thresholds for when police can use force on protesters and that he felt compelled largely after speaking with black community leaders around the state.
Other local leaders were looking to push similar initiatives Friday. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo,
backed by several City Council members, called for a council review Tuesday of the San Jose Police Department’s use of tear gas and rubber bullets and wants the department to detail its criteria for crowd-control methods — including use of riot gear, batons and flash-bang grenades. Liccardo voiced particular concern about rubber bullets and projectiles and their propensity for collateral injuries.
“We’re concerned for example
around the impacts of ricochets. … We want to go deep on this issue, to better understand, do we really need these?” Liccardo said during a Facebook Live address. “Do we really want foam or rubber bullets used in the context in which you have a dense, crowded area?”
Police Chief Eddie Garcia vigorously defended the department’s tactics in a news conference Thursday, arguing that crowds provoked officers to such an extent that one police captain felt he had “stepped into a war zone.”
Cristina Muñoz, 32, of San Jose, says that the force protesters encountered was out of proportion. She is skeptical about whether city leaders are ready to make lasting change.
“I just think the police department needs to be significantly, significantly reduced, and we need to redirect those resources to training and counseling and healing our community,” said Muñoz, who was peacefully protesting Friday.
In recent days, the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco have proposed slashing their city’s spending on police in favor of community investment.
Cory Massaro, who was accompanying Muñoz, said that any worthwhile reform has to come externally.
“Accountability structures cannot exist within the organization that needs accountability,” he said.
While attending a demonstration in Pleasanton on Friday, city resident Solynna Beyene said of the police violence seen locally and across the country, “It’s not right. It’s supposed to be a peaceful movement.”
Beyene continues protest, she said, to “see change.”
In an apparent allusion to Floyd’s killing, in which now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck as he lay face-down on the ground, Newsom said he is “immediately directing” the state’s Commission of Peace Officer Standards and Training to end its endorsement of carotid holds.
The technique, also known as a sleeper hold, is distinct from the airwayblocking chokeholds that were widely banned by police agencies in the wake of Eric Garner’s July 2014 killing by the New York Police Department. But the carotid hold has been shown to quickly become fatal if misapplied, especially with a person who is struggling.
In November, the Bay Area News Group revealed a previously unpublicized 2016 incident in Pittsburg in which a man died after a police officer’s carotid hold turned deadly. The Pittsburg police department never conducted an internal review of the incident, records show.
“At the end of the day, a carotid hold that literally is designed to stop people’s blood from flowing into their brain, that has no place any longer in 21st-century practices and policing,” Newsom said, who added he is backing legislation to end its practice statewide.
In response to Newsom’s edict, Los Alamitos Police Chief Eric R. Nuñez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said in a statement that he will work with state leaders “to find comprehensive and effective solutions to the concerns that have been brought forward.”