California’s Law Enforcement Gets Sweeping Reforms
How Governor Newsom approved reforms that will affect policing practices and bring some hope to communities of color
California like all the other states around the country, racism and racial profiling has been and are a huge issue for people of color. Many have been falsely accused, incarcerated, beaten, and even murdered. Communities have been fighting these injustices for as long as can be remembered just under a different disguise.
Change is always slow in coming and as Dr. King stated and I paraphrase, “Change must be demanded by the oppressed and would never be willingly given by the oppressors.”
I was surprised to learn that the minimum age for hiring officers was 18 and due to the pin of Governor Newsom has been raised to 21 and equally important, their badges can be taken away in cases of excessive force, dishonesty, and racial bias.
Given the recent and not so recent state of affairs and the investigations of law enforcement by the attorney generals and various justice advocates groups, some law enforcement officers once found guilty may be losing their badges, no more qualified immunity, hopefully.
With George Floyd’s death awakening, change is coming in several states. Gov. Newsom signed a stack of bills that are geared toward California law enforcement making all accountable and more transparent.
The bills will include, restricting uses of force that resulted in death and injury, raising police officers hiring age from 18 to 21, badges will be permanently taken for excessive force, dishonesty, and racial bias, new statewide standards on law enforcement’s use of rubber bullets and tear gas for crowd control, restricting techniques that interfere with breathing, lifetime decertification of officers who engaged in misconduct, required California’s state colleges to provide a modern policing degree program for new officers by 2025, the renewed ban on chokeholds, and AB 490 prohibits law enforcement agencies from authorizing restraint techniques,and transport methods that involve a substantial risk of positional asphyxia, no kneeing the neck of victims as it prevents or restricts breathing, AB 26, colleagues must intervene when colleague uses excessive force and report the event immediately, police officers records are subject to the public and prohibit participation in law enforcement gangs.
While Congress is yet fighting about qualified immunity, law enforcement accountability and cannot agree to move forward in any manner and thus far all seem to be on the back burner. Each member of Congress needs to learn how to walk in another’s shoes who have been treated unfairly at the hands of law enforcement, then and only then will they see the need for change with qualified immunity.
As to be expected, law enforcement is pushing back on these reforms but if they were treated all equally and fairly, reforms would not be necessary but the public knows the disparity between how people of color are treated compared to Caucasians is a vast divide.
Law enforcement claims that these reforms undermine them doing their job but it does not but make them accountable. Their job is to protect and serve all communities, fairly and equally but this is not and has never been a reality. Law enforcement, the California Police Chiefs’Association, along with three dozen groups representing police officers, opposed the bills, as they claim these reforms would prevent them from keeping Californians safe from criminals. Of late, facts and incidents have shown that there are criminals in law enforcement with an ill agenda toward people of color.
Law enforcement officers who have ethics and are treating all cocommunities fairly as they protect and serve should not have a problem, but the ones who have the problem are the ones who have been running loose and wild like a loose cannon creating mayhem and havoc in communities of color thereby instilling much distrust of law enforcement officers and the system.
The purpose of these reforms is to take the bad element cops off the street and leave the good ones in place. The criminal legal system is deep in injustices against people of color.
Hopefully, these new laws will build more trust, more transparency, and more accountability in a criminal system that is in bad need of restructuring and at a crisis level.
Most notable, Califonia has joined 46 other states that have taken action to block abusive officers from transferring to jobs to other law enforcement agencies and after being dismissed from one agency for misconduct or crime.
Newsom also signed AB48, a measure to address complaints of the police force tacts during all the demonstrations including the killing of George Floyd’s protest. Some of the police tacts using rubber bullets injured activists, journalists, and everyday people during peaceful demonstrations.
Also, new statewide standards have been set on law enforcement’s use of rubber bullets and tear gas for crowd control and new training for safe use of kinetic projectiles and chemical agents, and other de-escalation techniques before employing projectile weapons. The bill also addressed aiming these devices at the heads, neck, or other vital organs of the protestors.
In conclusion, Gov. Newsom realized the need to bring communities of color trust of the law enforcement entity back to the forefront, therefore legislation was the first step in easing the fear in all communities of color. His actions reflect the will of the voters of California who made it known that they support reforms that promote racial justice and fairness. Since Washington was not doing anything for national reform, Governor Newsom moved the needle in a positive direction for change. Hopefully, other states will follow suit.
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