The proposal, part of the governor’s budget package that he is still negotiating with the Legislature, has prompted strong criticism from a coalition of criminal justice and press freedom groups.
By Trân Nguyên | Associated Press
The law allows the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to investigate and decertify police officers for misconduct, such as use of excessive force, sexual assault and dishonesty. It requires the commission to make public the records of decertification cases. In Tennessee, records made available through the requirement provided a slew of new details on police officers’ actions when they brutally beat Tyre Nichols, a Black man, during a traffic stop earlier this year. Those details, released by the state police certification commission, were not previously made public by the local police department.
“To say, ‘go to the very people who commit the crimes against your community and ask them to reveal themselves to you so that you can hold them accountable,’ I don’t think that’s a fair process,” Torres-Walker said. Democratic Sen. Steven Bradford, who authored the 2021 landmark bill, declined to comment on the proposed change.
According to a May budget request, the commission estimated it will handle up to 3,500 decertification cases each year. That’s about 4% of all officers in California. The commission, which has suspended or decertified 44 police officers so far this year, requested an additional $6 million to handle the large number of complaints.
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