A senate bill geared towards creating a process to decertify police officers who misuse their authority, SB-731, didn’t have enough support in the California State Assembly to pass during an Aug. 31 vote.
Forty-five states already have police de-certification procedures in place to deal with offending officers, with only California, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island holding out.
“More than 200 professions and trades, including doctors, lawyers, and contractors are licensed or certified by the State of California,” SB-731 states, “In order to maintain professional standards and to protect the public, law enforcement officers are entrusted with extraordinary powers including the power to carry a firearm, to stop and search, to arrest, and to use force. They must be held to the highest standards of accountability, and the state should ensure that officers who abuse their authority by committing serious or repeated misconduct, or otherwise demonstrate a lack of fitness to serve as peace officers, are removed from the streets.”
The bill was co-sponsored by Black Lives Matter California and championed by local Black Lives Matter chapters across the Southland, including those in Long Beach and Los Angeles.
Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, spoke in support of SB-731 in downtown Long Beach on Saturday, Aug. 29 during a protest for Cesar Rodriguez. Rodriguez died after being fatally hit by a train in 2017 when LBPD officer Martin Ron attempted to forcibly detain him.
“I know that we are here today to recognize Cesar,” Abdullah told the crowd, “And we also need to do work, tangible work, in his name, so we have a bill, Senate Bill-731, which is written in honor of another one of our loved ones who we didn’t call during libations, Kenneth Ross Jr., who was killed right up the street in Gardena, not too far from here. Killed at Rowley Memorial Park by Sergeant Michael Robbins. This was his fourth shooting. We know that the police who killed Jesse Romero, the police who continue to kill our folks–oftentimes this is not even their first kill. They’ve killed people before. So what we’re saying is we know we can’t depend on trash a– District Attorney Jackie Lacey to prosecute these people, so at the very least we can snatch their badges, their guns and their jobs.”
Kenneth Ross Jr. was shot as he was running away from Gardena police. Police later claimed he had a gun, although no weapons can be seen in the video of the incident that was released.
“In 2017, 172 Californians were killed by the police,” SB-731 states, “and our state’s police departments have some of the highest rates of killings in the nation. Of the unarmed people California police killed, three out of four were people of color. Black and Latino families and communities of color are disproportionately vulnerable to police violence, creating generations of individual and community trauma.”
If SB-731 had passed, it would have prevented police officers who leave police departments due to misconduct from being rehired by any other departments in the state. Under the bill, the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, which sets minimum standards for police recruitment and training, and develops training courses and curriculum, would’ve been given the authority to decertify police officers. All police officers in the state would’ve been required to reapply for certification through the commission every two years. Those who were found guilty of misconduct, including “excessive force, sexual assault, making a false arrest, or participating in a law enforcement gang,” would be ineligible to renew their police certification and would be barred from working in any department in the state.
Black Lives Matter Long Beach encouraged their social media followers to contact state assembly members to urge them to support SB 731.
“We know that oftentimes these officers get away with it when they engage in misconduct, or they quit,” Black Lives Matter Long Beach wrote on Instagram, “on the rare occasion when they are fired, they just move to a new department, putting a new community at risk.”
The bill passed out of committee on Aug. 26, with 7 yes votes, 3 no votes, and one abstained vote. However, it failed to pass through the California State Assembly on Aug. 31.
