California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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On the heels of police officers shooting a young, unarmed black man to death in Sacramento, California, last month, state lawmakers announced a first-of-its-kind bill on Monday that raises the standard for when officers may open fire.

The proposed legislation would change the guidance in California’s use of force laws so that police may open fire ”‘only when necessary’ rather than ‘when reasonable,’” Sacramento-based Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D), said at a press conference Tuesday.

He co-authored the bill with fellow Democrat Assemblywoman Shirley Weber with support from the American Civil Liberties Union and fellow members of the California Legislative Black Caucus. They were joined at Tuesday’s press conference with Sacramento leaders from the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement, along with the grandfather of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, last month’s shooting victim.

“We should no longer be the target practice of a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ police force,” Assemblyman Christopher Holden (D) said, before listing the names of several other unarmed black victims of police shootings.

The legislation is aimed at tackling the reality, as seen in studies, that police kill unarmed black men at disproportionate rates compared to unarmed white men. Supporters of the bill hope raising the standard for when lethal force is permitted will encourage officers to make de-escalation their first line of defense.

The current standard comes from an “over-100-year-old law that too often justifies deadly force incidents,” McCarty said.

In the weeks since Clark’s death, McCarty’s district has been stormed by protestors furious about the emerging details surrounding the shooting. Upward of 300 demonstrators gathered in Sacramento last Friday after an autopsy revealed the young father was shot at least seven times in the back in his own backyard.

“It’s clear that the current law protects the police, not the people,” ACLU legislative advocate Lizzie Buchen said at Tuesday’s announcement as activists recounted similar shooting incidents involving police.

Weber is confident the state can pave the way on this issue.

“If California can’t do it,” she asked, “who can?”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ca ... a46f872c28

The Police aren’t going to be happy over this law.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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It all depends on how it's defined in the bill. IIRC McCarty was author of the law last year that made it illegal for teachers to carry guns on school campuses, some school districts in the Central Valley approved teachers carrying on campus. We'll see if McCarty has law enforcement backing, he's up for re-election this year.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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How is an officer to know when a shooting is 'necessary'? You get a call that there's an armed robbery in progress. You arrive to see a man running out of the business, with a full-sized handgun and a bag filled with something. You confront him. He points the gun at you. You shoot him. It turns out to be an airsoft or is real, but unloaded. Shooting him wasn't 'necessary', because he wasn't actually a threat. Under current law in every state, the shooting would be legal, because the standard is that it's reasonable given the facts that the officer has, not because it is necessary. Under the new law, the officer just committed murder, because he's held to a higher standard than even private citizens in using lethal force in self-defense.

The problem is that we let the police investigate their own shootings, we let prosecutors who work with them decide whether or not to bring charges, and we have too many people sitting on juries who just aren't willing to convict a police officer. Creating a standard that no one can be expected to meet won't save lives, it'll just make more of the dead police officers when they hesitate to shoot because they can't determine 'necessity'. We need to address the real problems, with independent police shooting boards, not make an impossible self-defense standard.

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Let's face it. This may be well intentioned, but I bet a dollar the courts would interpret the new law almost exactly the same as the current law and leave "necessary" up to the cops in the field.

I agree with Evo1's suggestion of focusing instead on changing the way incidents are investigated and prosecuted.
106+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

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Using the affirmative defense, which is tied to the doctrine of competing harm, when a self-defense shooter says essentially "yes, I shot him, and here's why I had no other choice", it shifts the burden of proof onto the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt (99+% certainty) that another person in the officer's shoes would not have fired. What would the reasonable and prudent person do in the exact same situation knowing what the defendant knew? And when the jury's educated about how the officer made the decision (s)he did, their training is also put on the stand.

As long as that remains in play, I don't know if changing the affiliation with the prosecutor will make any difference. And as it's the same process a civilian relies upon in a self-defense shooting, I don't think it's in our best interest to remove this option.

The best option, if we have a truly independent investigator or prosecutor, might be feeding back the results of investigations into the training process...and then finding a way to 'bubble' those 'lessons learned' to other jurisdictions as well.

Re: California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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Eris wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 12:01 am Let's face it. This may be well intentioned, but I bet a dollar the courts would interpret the new law almost exactly the same as the current law and leave "necessary" up to the cops in the field.

I agree with Evo1's suggestion of focusing instead on changing the way incidents are investigated and prosecuted.
I agree with you. It isn't destined to have a great effect.

But, I'm not sure how you change the way incidents are investigated and prosecuted either. It's a perception thing. In the USA cops can kill you for almost any fart of fear and get away with it.

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AndyH wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:33 am Using the affirmative defense, which is tied to the doctrine of competing harm, when a self-defense shooter says essentially "yes, I shot him, and here's why I had no other choice", it shifts the burden of proof onto the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt (99+% certainty) that another person in the officer's shoes would not have fired. What would the reasonable and prudent person do in the exact same situation knowing what the defendant knew? And when the jury's educated about how the officer made the decision (s)he did, their training is also put on the stand.

As long as that remains in play, I don't know if changing the affiliation with the prosecutor will make any difference. And as it's the same process a civilian relies upon in a self-defense shooting, I don't think it's in our best interest to remove this option.

The best option, if we have a truly independent investigator or prosecutor, might be feeding back the results of investigations into the training process...and then finding a way to 'bubble' those 'lessons learned' to other jurisdictions as well.
We spent millions on a trail and a special prosecutor here for the Boyd shooting in Albuquerque. Got a hung jury from it. Albuquerque being a small "city" I know a few of the attorneys in the trial. Total waste of money. But that wasn't the point the point was symbolism. By getting a "hired gun" special prosecutor we looked "independent" and ubiased.

Albuquerque police got the message and no longer practice pro-active policing. Our crime rate has in some crimes tripled the last 2 years. The police go out of their way to avoid trouble unless you call them specifically. Our vehicles are broken into about every other month, people don't bother to call. they just keep stuff out of their cars, which is now leading to house break-ins...

I'm not an emphatic fan of the police, I don't forgive everything they do, and I reflexively don't trust them. But the alternative we are experiencing is worse. And in a lot of places the police are getting the message. "you get paid either way, so sit in a parking lot BSing with your partner, and wait for dispatch to tell you to do something. Why risk yourself? your job? your freedom? or your city if there is riot? Just sit tight and let the animals do their thing. You got a pension and family to think about."

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As I mentioned on another thread, I'm all for shining a bright light on police shootings.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47806

The present system reinforces the perception that the old boy network protects cops at all costs, right or wrong that is the perception. When a cop is on trial, the defense makes jurors feel that they have to back the badge without question, because cops are the only line of defense against the criminals. Reports of shootings are all sounding the same - a suspect moves their hand, or another cop yells "gun"... shots are fired often fatally. It seems like there is no verification of the threat - a moving hand is not always a threat and someone yelling gun doesn't mean there is one.

I agree with AndyH about training, but to me it goes back to recruitment. Cops need brawn but mostly brain, so are we recruiting for the right things. I don't always believe that the answers are in other countries, but other countries have fewer fatal police shootings than the US even in countries where all police are armed, so they must be doing something right.

CA law enforcement will fight this bill and it will have a tough time in the Legislature and the governor may not sign it. And as Evo1 pointed out, there will be legal challenges and it could be sustained in state and federal court, but overturned by SCOTUS.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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I think it has to be a solution on a few fronts.

"different" training, not just in de-escalation but more defensive measures. I'm reminded of Tamir Rice, the police officer drove up on the lawn pretty close, like he was in lethal weapon 5 and fired the second he got his feet planted. Better, smarter training would have been to park at a distance, use the vehicle for cover and take a moment to assess.

Recruitment, that should be a no brainer. I'm not sure the solution but I think recruiting more thinkers to go along with the brawn would be a good thing.

Culture, we have a rough culture. There are just a lot of citizens who support the status quo, For every one person who thinks Philip Brailsford should go to jail, there are many more who think he had no other choice.

As long as the state keeps letting those go free, who do these shootings, the unjustified ones, you will have a populous of poor minorities who view every altercation with a cop as a possibility they will get shot. They will act as if their survival is on the line and react accordingly, creating the very scenarios that cops use to justify their shootings.

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highdesert wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:48 pm I agree with AndyH about training, but to me it goes back to recruitment. Cops need brawn but mostly brain, so are we recruiting for the right things. I don't always believe that the answers are in other countries, but other countries have fewer fatal police shootings than the US even in countries where all police are armed, so they must be doing something right.
I can't speak authoritatively on this as I come from a military background, not the legal or civilian LEO side of things. Sitting in a class lead by a long-time cop with a couple of LEOs on the student side of things brought an interesting tidbit: The instructor commented that LEO entrance exams weed out folks on both sides of the 'intelligence' curve - they want officers that are smart enough to follow their training but not smart enough to second-guess it.

I suspect you hit on something important when you said "the present system reinforces the perception". I'm wondering if a significant part of the problem is that our media outlets are failing us on this topic as well.

Re: California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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AndyH wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:33 am Using the affirmative defense, which is tied to the doctrine of competing harm, when a self-defense shooter says essentially "yes, I shot him, and here's why I had no other choice", it shifts the burden of proof onto the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt (99+% certainty) that another person in the officer's shoes would not have fired. What would the reasonable and prudent person do in the exact same situation knowing what the defendant knew? And when the jury's educated about how the officer made the decision (s)he did, their training is also put on the stand.

As long as that remains in play, I don't know if changing the affiliation with the prosecutor will make any difference. And as it's the same process a civilian relies upon in a self-defense shooting, I don't think it's in our best interest to remove this option.

The best option, if we have a truly independent investigator or prosecutor, might be feeding back the results of investigations into the training process...and then finding a way to 'bubble' those 'lessons learned' to other jurisdictions as well.
I'm not so sure this change in the law wouldn't take this out of play though. The current standard for the affirmative defense right now in such cases is the 'reasonable person' standard, but it appears that this is precisely what the law intends to change. Now, whether the courts just ignore that and rule that this is still the standard, this proposed bill sure sounds to me like it is saying that the standard for police shootings should be that the prosecutor only needs to show that the shooting wasn't necessary in order to convict.

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Evo1 wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:08 pm
AndyH wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:33 am Using the affirmative defense, which is tied to the doctrine of competing harm, when a self-defense shooter says essentially "yes, I shot him, and here's why I had no other choice", it shifts the burden of proof onto the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt (99+% certainty) that another person in the officer's shoes would not have fired. What would the reasonable and prudent person do in the exact same situation knowing what the defendant knew? And when the jury's educated about how the officer made the decision (s)he did, their training is also put on the stand.

As long as that remains in play, I don't know if changing the affiliation with the prosecutor will make any difference. And as it's the same process a civilian relies upon in a self-defense shooting, I don't think it's in our best interest to remove this option.

The best option, if we have a truly independent investigator or prosecutor, might be feeding back the results of investigations into the training process...and then finding a way to 'bubble' those 'lessons learned' to other jurisdictions as well.
I'm not so sure this change in the law wouldn't take this out of play though. The current standard for the affirmative defense right now in such cases is the 'reasonable person' standard, but it appears that this is precisely what the law intends to change. Now, whether the courts just ignore that and rule that this is still the standard, this proposed bill sure sounds to me like it is saying that the standard for police shootings should be that the prosecutor only needs to show that the shooting wasn't necessary in order to convict.
I like the way that sounds, but, it all depends on how they define necessary.

What would a jury think about that? Someone at night points "something" at an officer against their commands, be it a cell phone or their finger and the officer shoots the person, the line between necessary and reasonable gets pretty wide and pretty grey.

Re: California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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Evo1 wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:08 pm
AndyH wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:33 am Using the affirmative defense, which is tied to the doctrine of competing harm, when a self-defense shooter says essentially "yes, I shot him, and here's why I had no other choice", it shifts the burden of proof onto the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt (99+% certainty) that another person in the officer's shoes would not have fired. What would the reasonable and prudent person do in the exact same situation knowing what the defendant knew? And when the jury's educated about how the officer made the decision (s)he did, their training is also put on the stand.

As long as that remains in play, I don't know if changing the affiliation with the prosecutor will make any difference. And as it's the same process a civilian relies upon in a self-defense shooting, I don't think it's in our best interest to remove this option.

The best option, if we have a truly independent investigator or prosecutor, might be feeding back the results of investigations into the training process...and then finding a way to 'bubble' those 'lessons learned' to other jurisdictions as well.
I'm not so sure this change in the law wouldn't take this out of play though. The current standard for the affirmative defense right now in such cases is the 'reasonable person' standard, but it appears that this is precisely what the law intends to change. Now, whether the courts just ignore that and rule that this is still the standard, this proposed bill sure sounds to me like it is saying that the standard for police shootings should be that the prosecutor only needs to show that the shooting wasn't necessary in order to convict.
Politicians seem to be able to consistently do the wrong thing with such ease. Why does this feel like a knee-jerk response to social media pressure that'll make things worse?

Re: California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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NoimpactNoidea wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 1:44 pm We spent millions on a trail and a special prosecutor here for the Boyd shooting in Albuquerque. Got a hung jury from it. Albuquerque being a small "city" I know a few of the attorneys in the trial. Total waste of money. But that wasn't the point the point was symbolism. By getting a "hired gun" special prosecutor we looked "independent" and ubiased.

Albuquerque police got the message and no longer practice pro-active policing. Our crime rate has in some crimes tripled the last 2 years. The police go out of their way to avoid trouble unless you call them specifically. Our vehicles are broken into about every other month, people don't bother to call. they just keep stuff out of their cars, which is now leading to house break-ins...

I'm not an emphatic fan of the police, I don't forgive everything they do, and I reflexively don't trust them. But the alternative we are experiencing is worse. And in a lot of places the police are getting the message. "you get paid either way, so sit in a parking lot BSing with your partner, and wait for dispatch to tell you to do something. Why risk yourself? your job? your freedom? or your city if there is riot? Just sit tight and let the animals do their thing. You got a pension and family to think about."
Rather than hiring special prosecutors, why not simply establish a permanent independent organization whose job it is to investigate and prosecute all forms of criminal police misconduct?

And, yes, there is always the risk that the police slack off if they start feeling unappreciated. If that happens then you start replacing the police administration until you get a group of leaders in who can make the rank and file see that they are not 'special citizens', and need to accept that they will be held to the same general standards of ethics as others. Reform is never easy, and usually takes time, but that's not an excuse for not taking it on. And let me say up front, that I'm not anti-police. I was a LEO myself, and many of my family are former or current police officers as well. I'm also not saying that most police are corrupt or out of control. But I think the system has bent over backward too far to protect all the good ones, to the point that it fails horribly to do much of anything about the bad ones.

The problem is that this tendency to give the police a pass is rapidly approaching a breaking point. The unrest over police shootings in 2016, culminating in the Dallas mass shooting and the Baton Rouge shooting, was just the beginning. Anyone who lived through the occasional major race riots we've had in this country over the past 5 or 6 decades should recognize the symptoms in our society that led up to them. Despite the unrest in 2016, nothing really changed, and we're seeing the pro-police side simply digging in and reinforcing their position. Inevitably this is eventually going to cause things to come to a real head. So we either take action and risk pushback from the police and their unions, or we wait until a few major cities completely melt down.

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Seems something's changed in ABQ since the 1975 strike?

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/24/arch ... trike.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., July 23— During the 10‐day police strike that ended here Monday, striking policemen daily predicted a crime wave.

While the city may never know exactly how over‐all crime during the strike compared with pre‐strike levels record keeping was kept to a minimum during the strike to many the city seemed as peaceful as usual. And to some it seemed that crime had even declined.

“There is no question about it, the crime went down slightly,” said Lieut. Larry Ward, police spokesman.

Bookings at the local jails were down sharply, but nobody knew if this was because there were fewer crimes or there were simply fewer policemen on duty to arrest criminals. Minor problems were often not reported to the police, at their request.

Idea Being Challenged

If there was less crime, the reason remained obscure. But Mayor Harry E. Kinney and some veteran policemen said that criminals feared armed citizens protecting themselves more than they feared the police.
Or...maybe we need a lot more concealed carriers?

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Evo1 wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:28 pm
Rather than hiring special prosecutors, why not simply establish a permanent independent organization whose job it is to investigate and prosecute all forms of criminal police misconduct?

And, yes, there is always the risk that the police slack off if they start feeling unappreciated. If that happens then you start replacing the police administration until you get a group of leaders in who can make the rank and file see that they are not 'special citizens', and need to accept that they will be held to the same general standards of ethics as others. Reform is never easy, and usually takes time, but that's not an excuse for not taking it on. And let me say up front, that I'm not anti-police. I was a LEO myself, and many of my family are former or current police officers as well. I'm also not saying that most police are corrupt or out of control. But I think the system has bent over backward too far to protect all the good ones, to the point that it fails horribly to do much of anything about the bad ones.

The problem is that this tendency to give the police a pass is rapidly approaching a breaking point. The unrest over police shootings in 2016, culminating in the Dallas mass shooting and the Baton Rouge shooting, was just the beginning. Anyone who lived through the occasional major race riots we've had in this country over the past 5 or 6 decades should recognize the symptoms in our society that led up to them. Despite the unrest in 2016, nothing really changed, and we're seeing the pro-police side simply digging in and reinforcing their position. Inevitably this is eventually going to cause things to come to a real head. So we either take action and risk pushback from the police and their unions, or we wait until a few major cities completely melt down.
Many states have independant groups do many things like setting boundaries for congressional districts. But the moment that idea is floated on investigating cops you can bet a ton of resistence from a lot of red states and police unions.

You're 100% right about the symptoms leading to a major race riot. And I think that's where this will eventually get to. The only thing anyone can agree on is we need to see less police shootings.

Demanding change in rules and laws for how officers will be prosecuted leads immediately to counters of " police will hesitate and people will die"

Its either the people continue to be at risk or cops take greater risks. I don't think thats ultimately true, just the defense that it boils down to.

In my very humble, never been a cop opinion, necessity is the mother of all invention. If we simply bit the bullet and got looser standards in convicting cops, as well as tighter standards on when force is allowed to be used, I firmly believe the training will be curtailed to safer practices. As with my above tamir rice example, the officer could easily have stopped a fair bit further away and simply took a defensive position. some time to assess the situation. In fsct the line since that incident was that they changed training to de-escalation.

The teen recently shot in the trunk of a car in San Fran is a good example. Took safer positions, called for him to exit the trunk and only opened fire when he took a shot.

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DougMasters wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 6:00 pm Many states have independant groups do many things like setting boundaries for congressional districts. But the moment that idea is floated on investigating cops you can bet a ton of resistence from a lot of red states and police unions.

You're 100% right about the symptoms leading to a major race riot. And I think that's where this will eventually get to. The only thing anyone can agree on is we need to see less police shootings.

Demanding change in rules and laws for how officers will be prosecuted leads immediately to counters of " police will hesitate and people will die"

Its either the people continue to be at risk or cops take greater risks. I don't think thats ultimately true, just the defense that it boils down to.

In my very humble, never been a cop opinion, necessity is the mother of all invention. If we simply bit the bullet and got looser standards in convicting cops, as well as tighter standards on when force is allowed to be used, I firmly believe the training will be curtailed to safer practices. As with my above tamir rice example, the officer could easily have stopped a fair bit further away and simply took a defensive position. some time to assess the situation. In fsct the line since that incident was that they changed training to de-escalation.

The teen recently shot in the trunk of a car in San Fran is a good example. Took safer positions, called for him to exit the trunk and only opened fire when he took a shot.
Check out the laws in your state that cover homicide and justifiable homicide. The reason police aren't prosecuted in many of these incidents is because legally they were justified in doing what they did. Sensationalist attorneys (that are legally allowed to lie) yell and scream their falsehood, the MSM echoes it, and the lie influences the public and the politicians. Before we call for any change, we need to be able to see beyond the information warfare campaign and see what's really happening.

I totally agree with you about the Tamir Rice shooting - that and many others could have been handled better. I can see where the police were coming from in the Stephon Clark shooting as well - they're looking for a criminal, and they find someone where the criminal was reported to be that didn't follow police orders and ran. That's what put Mr. Clark into the problem - not the cell phone. Fleeing felon - case closed. The problem with this case is that the same civil rights attorney that made life hell for people after Brown and Martin were shot is doing his special light show in CA.

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How Europe does it:

"By contrast, national standards in most European countries conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which impels its 47 signatories to permit only deadly force that is “absolutely necessary” to achieve a lawful purpose. Killings excused under America’s “reasonable belief” standards often violate Europe’s “absolute necessity” standards.

For example, the unfounded fear of Darren Wilson – the former Ferguson cop who fatally shot Michael Brown – that Brown was armed would not have likely absolved him in Europe. Nor would officers’ fears of the screwdriver that a mentally ill Dallas man Jason Harrison refused to drop.

In Europe, killing is considered unnecessary if alternatives exist. For example, national guidelines in Spain would have prescribed that Wilson incrementally pursue verbal warnings, warning shots, and shots at nonvital parts of the body before resorting to deadly force. Six shots would likely be deemed disproportionate to the threat that Brown, unarmed and wounded, allegedly posed."

https://theconversation.com/why-do-amer ... cops-49696

Unarmed, wounded and fleeing to be precise!
Last edited by SilasSoule on Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"When and if fascism comes to America... it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'." - Halford Luccock
"Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
— Mikhail Bakunin

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This bill has an uphill battle, the law enforcement lobby in CA is very strong.
In the waning days of the 2015 legislative session, activists staged a massive die-in at the California Capitol and crowded the halls outside Gov. Jerry Brown’s office, chanting for him to sign a bill that would require law enforcement to gather and report data on police stops.

Supporters of the policy, which they hoped would illuminate the extent of racial profiling against minorities, had watched as measure after measure designed to rein in law enforcement practices fell short that year. When their pressure campaign worked, and Brown signed Assembly Bill 953 into law the following month, it provided advocates of greater police oversight with a rare legislative victory.
Even in a liberal state, where the governor has prioritized loosening old tough-on-crime policies, legislators say the enormous influence of law enforcement groups makes it nearly impossible to pursue bills on police shootings, misconduct and body cameras.
California has strict laws against releasing information on officers who are disciplined. Police unions argue it is necessary to protect their privacy and safety, and they have aggressively fought legislation to expand access. Former Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, led a major push two years ago to make public the records related to investigations of police use of force resulting in death or serious injury, as well as sustained findings of misconduct. Senate Bill 1286 did not get a floor vote, and efforts to revive the bill since he termed out have been even less successful.

Communities across the state also have a patchwork of rules for the use of body cameras by police, which advocates believe provide an opportunity for greater transparency about how officers do their jobs. But numerous measures to regulate them, including one by Weber, bogged down in the past three legislative sessions over disagreements about whether to require them and under what conditions. So have bills concerning the release of body camera footage. Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, sought two years ago to make the videos available for public request within 60 days of alleged misconduct by an officer; Assembly Bill 1957 died on the Assembly floor.

In return, civil rights groups worked to defeat legislation supported by police groups that would have allowed officers to review their footage before filing a report, given them the opportunity to seek an injunction against the release of a video they believed would endanger them, and blocked videos depicting the death of an officer.

Legislators who have pursued bills on policing said the failure to take any action diminishes minority communities’ trust in law enforcement. When they don’t think they will be treated fairly, Weber said, people of color are afraid to contact the police and they lose out on the benefit of public safety.

Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, has carried two unsuccessful bills to introduce state oversight of police shootings. Assembly Bill 284 last year would have created an independent unit within the California Department of Justice to investigate and recommend whether to press charges, after the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office cleared two officers who attempted to run down Joseph Mann with their cruisers and then shot him 18 times.

McCarty said independent investigations are necessary because local prosecutors are too cozy with the law enforcement agencies they regularly work with to ensure a fair outcome. But he scaled the measure back to a study to ensure Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s support, before it was held in the Senate. He is considering trying again this session through the budget.

“The findings at the end of the day are always going to be suspect,” McCarty said. “There has to be a better way.”

The Peace Officers Research Association of California and the California State Sheriffs’ Association, two of the influential law enforcement organizations at the Capitol, did not return interview requests.

Lawmakers said their sway arises not just from aggressive lobbying, such as calling members on their cell phones on the floor during important votes, and generous campaign donations. Legislators worry about looking weak on crime and how that could be used against them in their next election. There is no real pressure from top officials, such as the governor or the attorney general, to counterbalance those forces.
Even when the Legislature does pass a new law that police groups disagree with, the opposition does not necessarily subside.

An appellate court last year overturned Mitchell’s 2015 measure prohibiting grand juries from investigating police shootings after the California District Attorneys Association sued. Weber said multiple bills to weaken AB 953 have been circulated.

The national outcry over Clark, shot 20 times in his backyard by officers who thought the cellphone in his hand was a gun, raises the issue of police shootings again. Lawmakers said they were disturbed by footage of the incident that Sacramento police released this week, though they were unsure it would clear the way for any legislation.
http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article206483329.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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highdesert wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:48 pm I don't always believe that the answers are in other countries, but other countries have fewer fatal police shootings than the US even in countries where all police are armed, so they must be doing something right.
Do you think that the reason that police in other countries shoot far fewer people than in the US might possibly have something to do with the fact that police in other countries face far fewer assailants armed with guns? The vast majority of assailants killed by police are armed assailants.
Last edited by Mustang on Thu Apr 05, 2018 1:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

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SilasSoule wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:13 pm How Europe does it:

"By contrast, national standards in most European countries conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which impels its 47 signatories to permit only deadly force that is “absolutely necessary” to achieve a lawful purpose. Killings excused under America’s “reasonable belief” standards often violate Europe’s “absolute necessity” standards.

For example, the unfounded fear of Darren Wilson – the former Ferguson cop who fatally shot Michael Brown – that Brown was armed would not have likely absolved him in Europe. Nor would officers’ fears of the screwdriver that a mentally ill Dallas man Jason Harrison refused to drop.

In Europe, killing is considered unnecessary if alternatives exist. For example, national guidelines in Spain would have prescribed that Wilson incrementally pursue verbal warnings, warning shots, and shots at nonvital parts of the body before resorting to deadly force. Six shots would likely be deemed disproportionate to the threat that Brown, unarmed and wounded, allegedly posed."

https://theconversation.com/why-do-amer ... cops-49696

Unarmed, wounded and fleeing to be precise!
Silas, you seem to have a very tenuous grasp of the facts in the Michael Brown shooting.

Brown, who was substantially larger than Wilson, was shot after he had assaulted Officer Wilson and attempted to wrestle his gun away from him. Wilson was pursuing Brown and only shot Brown after Brown turned on him and charged him.

Re: California proposed legislation to restrict police use of firearms.

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AndyH wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:03 pm
DougMasters wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 6:00 pm Many states have independant groups do many things like setting boundaries for congressional districts. But the moment that idea is floated on investigating cops you can bet a ton of resistence from a lot of red states and police unions.

You're 100% right about the symptoms leading to a major race riot. And I think that's where this will eventually get to. The only thing anyone can agree on is we need to see less police shootings.

Demanding change in rules and laws for how officers will be prosecuted leads immediately to counters of " police will hesitate and people will die"

Its either the people continue to be at risk or cops take greater risks. I don't think thats ultimately true, just the defense that it boils down to.

In my very humble, never been a cop opinion, necessity is the mother of all invention. If we simply bit the bullet and got looser standards in convicting cops, as well as tighter standards on when force is allowed to be used, I firmly believe the training will be curtailed to safer practices. As with my above tamir rice example, the officer could easily have stopped a fair bit further away and simply took a defensive position. some time to assess the situation. In fsct the line since that incident was that they changed training to de-escalation.

The teen recently shot in the trunk of a car in San Fran is a good example. Took safer positions, called for him to exit the trunk and only opened fire when he took a shot.
Check out the laws in your state that cover homicide and justifiable homicide. The reason police aren't prosecuted in many of these incidents is because legally they were justified in doing what they did. Sensationalist attorneys (that are legally allowed to lie) yell and scream their falsehood, the MSM echoes it, and the lie influences the public and the politicians. Before we call for any change, we need to be able to see beyond the information warfare campaign and see what's really happening.

I totally agree with you about the Tamir Rice shooting - that and many others could have been handled better. I can see where the police were coming from in the Stephon Clark shooting as well - they're looking for a criminal, and they find someone where the criminal was reported to be that didn't follow police orders and ran. That's what put Mr. Clark into the problem - not the cell phone. Fleeing felon - case closed. The problem with this case is that the same civil rights attorney that made life hell for people after Brown and Martin were shot is doing his special light show in CA.
I'm in AZ. A cop with "your fucked" etched on his rifle, played a round of 20 commands in the game of "comply or die" with a crying man on his knees begging for his life, waiting till he made the mistake of trying to address his shorts slipping down, and then executed him.

Well he got away with that one. I'm not sure on the minutia of the law but for cops it seems essentially the same as everywhere else.

I suppose above the overall point I was trying to make, which I rambled through, is that if you put more onus and responsibility on cops for their killings / murder they would naturally retrain out of necessity to accommodate the changes. It won't be smooth but the alternative is ti stay the course, let urban people remind themselves of words spoken by KRS and Ice-T until their collective heads explode over the oppression and they fight back.

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