State lawmakers must stop stalling on police reform
There’s no faking it anymore. Lawmakers have two key bills before them that face a Monday deadline for passage.
The time has come for California legislators to walk their talk on police reform.
They have an opportunity in the next few days to take serious action to ensure transparency and accountability. Or they can continue kowtowing to politically powerful police unions by coddling bad cops as they’ve been doing for decades.
There’s no faking it anymore. Lawmakers have two key bills before them that face a Monday deadline for passage. One would increase the transparency of police records and punish the stonewalling on their release. The other would set up a certification process to stop police from job-hopping when they engage in misconduct.
We keep hearing lawmakers talking in this post-George Floyd era about improving policing, ending abuses and addressing racism in law enforcement. None of that talk means squat if legislators fail to pass Senate Bills 776 and 731, which, respectively, would require transparency and accountability that’s common in most other states.
The problem can’t be fixed if the public is kept in the dark about the abuse and bad cops can jump from one police department to the next with impunity. And, make no mistake, there is a problem in the Bay Area and California — a big problem.
An analysis by this news organization, released in June, found that while Black people make up 7% of the Bay Area population, they make up 27% of 110 people killed by police in the past 5 1/2 years.
Separately, a study reported this summer from researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that Black people here are more likely to be killed by police than in any other metro area in America except Oklahoma City.
A state law, created by the 2019 approval of SB 1421, authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, requires police agencies to release documents pertaining to cops’ discharge of firearms, use of major force, sexual assault and dishonesty.
The information about cops in some of those records has been disturbing: Stolen drugs and bullets. A potentially deadly chokehold. Falsified reports. A person’s face smashed into the floor. Sexual assault in jail. Cavorting with sex workers. Domestic violence complaints against an officer ignored.
But the refusal of Attorney General Xavier Becerra and many officials around the state to comply with the disclosure law has been appalling. Bay Area police agencies in San Jose, Hayward and Richmond, along with Contra Costa Sheriff David Livingston, have dragged their feet or balked at compliance.
Enough is enough. It’s time for penalties to ensure public officials follow the law. Skinner’s latest bill, SB 776, would impose civil fines on agencies that refuse. It would entitle a member of the public who must file a lawsuit for police records to recover twice reasonable attorney fees and costs.
The bill would also expand the police records subject to disclosure to include allegations of excessive force or dishonesty and sustained findings of prejudicial conduct or unlawful arrests or searches. And the bill would require police agencies to retain records of sustained misconduct for at least 30 years.
Unfortunately, while transparency is essential, it alone will not be sufficient to weed out bad cops. Nor will internal police discipline, as this news organization has revealed.
A San Jose State cop fired in 2017 for beating a man in the library, then reinstated over the university’s objections went to work for the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department.
An Alameda County deputy sheriff fired in 2015 for soliciting prostitution and dishonesty after he filed a false police report related to his divorce was later hired by the Pinole Police Department.
These cases raise serious concerns about the revolving door for troubled cops and the hiring practices of California police departments that employ officers who have been canned elsewhere. The only way to stop that is with a state certification process for police. If we can do it for hairdressers, contractors and attorneys, certainly we can do it for cops.
SB 731, introduced by Sen. Steven Bradford, DGardena, would set up a police certification process, administered by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. It would require that peace officers in California obtain commission certification at least every two years and that their employers report their hiring or departure and complaints about their conduct.
The bill would also set up a division in the state agency to investigate and seek to decertify abusive cops. The accused police officers would be entitled to due process, including an administrative hearing, before losing their certifications. California is one of only five states that lack a police certification system. It’s basic oversight of law enforcement.
The time for lawmakers’ excuses is over. How they vote on these two critical bills will show whether they’re serious about reform — or they’re