CA Efforts at Police Reform Remain Unsuccessful
By KateMarie Boccone
The California legislature is making efforts to enact police reform laws after Californians took to the streets in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer. Despite the fact that most of the legislative measures intended to address the issue have been stalled or rejected, advocates still say change is on the way.
After a video of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd’s neck went viral in June 2020, the nation erupted with protests. Throughout the summer, demonstrations of outrage consumed major California cities, including San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco. Some of these Bay Area protests produced their own viral videos of police misconduct, amplifying the call for police reform legislation throughout the state.
California State Senator Bob Wieckowski (D-Santa Clara) has been an advocate of the police reform bills proposed.
“Politicians like myself, people who ran, were always embracing police activities and saying they could never do anything wrong. Even if they did something wrong, it was excusable. It’s sad, whether it's lethal force or non-lethal force, that [addressing] the mistreatment has taken so long,” Wieckowski said.
California Senate Bill (SB) 776, proposed in January 2020 by State Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), garnered support from activists that were shocked by the number of Use of Force complaints contained in Chauvin’s record. The bill aims to increase the amount of publicly available records involving police misconduct and allow members of the public to file suit when a police department does not willingly supply them upon request.
Similar bills aiming to increase police accountability include Assembly Bill (AB) 1599, which proposes creating a mandatory third-party investigation process for reports of police misconduct, and SB 629, which would have granted reporters documenting protests additional protections against police.
So far, no bill has been approved. AB 1599 currently remains in committee and SB 776 was sent to the Senate inactive file at the end of the state congressional session of 2020. SB 629 passed Congress, but was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom.
In 2018, Senator Skinner proposed SB 1421, which passed in August of that year and increased the scope of police records the public is entitled to access. The bill hit a snag when California Attorney General Xavier Becerra insisted that it only applied to police records created after the date of the bill’s passing. However, in nearly all the court battles that have ensued, the legislation was interpreted to allow retroactive access to records as well. SB 776 would have added to SB 1421 by instituting monetary penalties on departments that do not comply.
Transparency is the focus of many of these new police reform bills. To some advocates of police reform, that is a logical first step.
In January of 2020, First Amendment Coalition (FAC), a non-profit dedicated to protecting free speech and holding the government accountable, won a legal victory against Becerra in the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. The Executive Director of FAC, David Snyder, said he viewed Becerra’s opposition to the bill as very disappointing.
“The state’s highest law enforcement officer has in some ways led the charge against producing all the records that we believe the public are entitled to and I think that is indicative of a deep seeded feeling among some law enforcement that misconduct is something that the public is just not entitled to see,” Snyder said.
He believes that shining a light in the shadows of police misconduct can start the reform process.
“Before you can have a conversation about accountability there has to really be transparency, the public really has to know what the government is doing to hold them accountable for it,” Snyder said.
Eric R. Nuñez, California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA) President and Los Alamitos Police Chief, is certain that more reform is on the way. The CPCA released a platform titled “Leading The Way” in June that outlines some of the measures that have and will be taking. Nuñez also wants the conversation to include how to prevent police from having to interfere in situations they simply are not suited for.
“People end up being [mentally ill and homeless] because of things that weren’t done right before in their lives and it's a complex set of factors and we know if we can stop that from happening we can reduce the chances of those interactions in the first place. We understand that by the time they get to us, some of the folks we have to interact with, they’ve had a hard life,” Nuñez said.
The public pressure to increase transparency continued to grow during the summer protests. At the conclusion of the Congressional session, many advocates told reporters in Sacramento that they were disappointed with the small number of reforms that actually passed. Newsom did sign bills limiting the use of deadly force and allowing federal investigations of police shootings. The police unions viewed these reforms as a loss and activists viewed the reforms as not nearly being enough.
Senator Wieckowski has not given up hope. He said that some of the delays in passing these bills, specifically SB 776, are due to the COVID-19 lockdown and the ever-changing protocols coming from the Capitol. He is sure that when the session resumes, the Congress will be able to “work through the process and amendments, the back and forth with the advocates and the people that object” on many of these important measures.
For Santa Clara and the state of California, Wieckowski believes the time has come for police reform.
“I think we owe at a minimum that [transparency] to the public and to the people of Santa Clara,” Wieckowski said.
(Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the November 2020 [Volume 51, Issue 2] edition of The Advocate.)