GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN SIGNS RACIAL PROFILING BILL, THRILLING SOME, IRRITATING OTHERS
On Saturday, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 953, The Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015, a bill that, since its introduction, has aroused strong passions, pro and con.
The bill requires the collection of data by California law enforcement agencies on the racial makeup of all those stopped by the police, along with the outcomes of those stops. All the data, once compiled, will be made public.
AB 953 will “collect data to validate what black people experience very day,” said Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) when she spoke to her fellow senators in favor of the bill’s passage. Mitchell is one of the bill’s co-authors.
The newly signed legislation was written by Assemblymember Shirley Weber’s (D-San Diego), who thanked Gov. Brown in a statement after the signing, describing him as being, along with his father, “on the forefront of civil rights” for the last half century.
“AB 953 will be the state’s first step toward not only understanding the problem of racial profiling,” said Weber, “but also toward formulating policies to reduce the practice and its devastating consequences. California is going in a new direction on this issue; hopefully, this will set an example for other states.”
Assembly Member Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), another co-author, tweeted cheerily after the signing, “Justice wins today…”
AB 953 was sponsored by such reform-minded groups as the ACLU of California, the Youth Justice Coalition, PICO California, Dignity and Power Now, and others.
In statement released after the signing, the Nor Cal ACLU called AB 953 a “monumental step toward fair policing with first-ever bill to collect, analyze, and make public data on all police stops.
“California holds the ominous record for the highest number of deaths in the country, with 149 people killed by law enforcement in the state this year,” the ACLU wrote. “However, the state still does not collect, analyze, or make available basic information about who the police, stop, search or even shoot.”
Interestingly, the bill also received impassioned support from clergy up and down the state, a diverse group of whom signed a letter addressed to the governor encouraging him to sign the bill.
It read in part:
We people of faith imagine a new California where Black, Brown, and Native people rejoice knowing their leaders, particularly their Governor, have done everything possible to ensure safeguards are in place that create understanding, accountability, and trust with law enforcement. Research has shown that race plays an unconscious role in everyone’s decision-making, particularly in split-second decisions on perceived crime and danger. Unfortunately, when it comes to policing we still don’t have data at the statewide level to address this. Policing that wrongfully uses discriminatory practices will only lead to more unjust deaths, and reaffirms distrust in law enforcement, which makes all of us less safe.
AB 953’s passage in California would send a signal to the whole country that California is leading the nation on fair policing during the urgency of this moral crisis. We should not be afraid of data – in fact, data will help us empower reform and facilitate reconciliation with police officers at the neighborhood level.
On the other side of the issue, however, opinions also ran strong, especially among law enforcement organizations, many of which described AB 953 as a costly headache that would provide little information of real use. For instance, The Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) urged a veto, telling the governor:
Our communities are frustrated in the wake of high profile incidents involving officer use of force. PORAC understands the concerns of the public and wants to work together to address these issues and move forward together. However, the additional reporting requirements under AB 953 will prove burdensome, and implementation and maintenance for such record keeping will prove costly and be of little benefit to the community.
Brown, who has generally been very attentive to the views of law enforcement since his stint as California Attorney General,, reportedly called several of the heads of the big LE groups that had opposed the bill, in order to explain his thinking.
(LA Times reporters Kim Christensen and Matt Hamilton have a longer story on the reaction of law enforcement around the state to Brown’s signing of the law. So take a look.)
The new law does not require the new data collection to actually begin until March 1, 2018, giving all those concerned more than two years to create systems to gather and analyze the data in question.
AB 953 was one of around a dozen criminal justice bills that Brown signed over the weekend. Tomorrow, we’ll have a run down of some of the rest of the bills for your reading pleasure.
AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: SHERIFF JIM MCDONNELL TALKS ABOUT OREGON SHOOTING, ICE IN JAILS, AND NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH FEDS
Los Angeles County Sheriff, Jim McDonnell, was interviewed Sunday on NBC4 where he talked about such topics as the Oregon shooting, the controversial decision to have ICE agents back in LA’s jails, and a new partnership between the LASD and the U.S. Attorney’s office to combat sex trafficking in LA County, a crime that U.S. attorney Eileen Decker said is on the increase and has become a “priority issue” for the Department of Justice.
McDonnell too pointed to the issue as a priority. “The average age of a girl in California getting involved is 12 years old,” he said, explaining that the LAPD plus smaller LA County police agencies were also involved in the newly created task force.
On the tragedy in Oregon, and what should be done to prevent such horrors, McDonnell said, “While the gun is the vehicle, and after every one of these, we focus on that….the underlying cause is mental illness…”
Forty percent of the uses of force in the sheriff’s department, McDonnell said, “are dealing with the mentally ill.”
The sheriff called again for community based treatment for the mentally ill, so that the jails aren’t “the default mechanism…” for their treatment, as has been true in the past.
The interview has lots more, including a detailed explanation of the ways that ICE will and will not have access to LA County jail inmates. So take a look.
…AND ABOUT THOSE GUNS USED IN THE MOST RECENT OF AMERICA’S MASS SHOOTINGS
The New York Times has a sort of info-graphic feature on how the various shooters got their guns.
The Times’ writers note that, “criminal histories and documented mental health problems did not prevent at least eight of the gunmen in 14 recent mass shootings from obtaining their weapons, after federal background checks led to approval of the purchases of the guns used.”
The charts are disturbing but important, so take a look.
The racial profile bill is a double edge sword.
Sen. Holly Mitchell, you are pathetic. You’re hate towards Law Enforcement is obvious and disturbing. Of the 1,000 people killed in CA that you quote, at the hands of Law Enforcement, how many of those were justified? And during that same time frame why don’t you quote the number of blacks killed by other blacks? Instead of blaming Law Enforcement for your races problems, you need to hold your race accountable and call them out? You are what’s wrong with the black community. You suck off the tit of society, and constantly play the race card. Instead of the same old race baiting, and the blame game, do something positive, and tell the black people you represent, to act like adults, play by the rules, and respect authority.
and by the way.. Fix your hair. Your head looks like a mop!
S.I.D…..Point taken and understood. You lose reality when you tell “any individual” to “hold their race responsible”. You make no mention of “Your’s Truly” Governor Brown himself. Read #1
This will not prove a thing. Blacks will get stopped in black communities and Hispanics will get stopped in Hispanic areas. Whites in white areas and Asians in Asian areas. When most of the crime is committed by Blacks and Hispanics, who do you think is going to get stopped? I guess anyone with common sense could figure that one out. Governor Brown if you want to do something make it a Felony for anyone carrying a firearm. That would be a good start.
I profiled every day I was on the streets, it was what I was paid to do. Knew the gangs in my area, knew who was on parole or probation, who I could search just because. Knew if White folks were in the Black area it was to partake in buying dope or sex, it was that simple. Consensual contacts were easy and plentiful. Protecting the rights of bad guys is the domain of people who simply don’t care about the good people in crime ridden areas. They make up silly exaggerated claims of police profiling due only to race, not experience, and bills like this are their answer which do nothing to help any victim ever, just make cops more cautious and less likely to be proactive as they should be. As violent crime skyrockets in major cities thank what this administration, the left and social do gooders looking out only for bad guys have brought you in the name of some perceived racial injustice that won’t stop one person from becoming the victim of the real problem, gang and thug violence.
Seasoned LEO’S know the drill. Yes the new bill AB 953 will require more tedious paperwork, however the real complainers will only be the typical bad guys (thugs, gangsters, etc..) and lazy cops.
The real go getters will use the number one tool in law enforcement and that is “probable cause” backed up by “articulation”. Police work is a young man’s game with a sharp mind and a physically fit body.
Really, additional articulation not needed in the first place is a waste of an officers time and effort that could be used better serving the populace in actual crime fighting efforts. This fights nothing and will end up changing nothing except making more officers look “lazy” as their “on view” activity takes a hit.
@8. Times are changing. Cops have to change with it. Any professional worth their salt has to continually update and adhere to the latest law, procedure, ruling, etc… Revolvers to semi automatics, paper logs to MDC’S, and a cops testimony to body cams.
I’m all for body cams, let the truth be told. Feel good silly nonsensical waste of an officers time laws like this one, nope.