By Shaun Rundle, Government Affairs and Public Safety Specialist
The association’s collective voice for law enforcement in California spoke loud and clear in response to proposed legislation from the CA DOJ regarding officer involved shooting investigations. With only a few weeks remaining in the 2015-2016 Legislative Session, Attorney General Kamala Harris’s office distributed proposed language to law enforcement groups, including CPOA. Our Law & Legislation Committee members quickly reviewed the language and we responded to DOJ with some serious concerns regarding the bill’s proposals. The AG heard our voice, and dropped the bill in favor of future discussions with law enforcement.
Legislative interest in OIS started off in January of 2015, when a bill was introduced by Assembly member Kevin McCarty of Sacramento. That bill, AB 86, would have required the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to direct an independent investigation if a peace officer, in the performance of his or her duties, used deadly physical force upon another person and that person died as a result. CPOA and other law enforcement associations overwhelmingly opposed the bill for its attempt to usurp local investigative jurisdiction. The public interest and legislative conversation around OIS occurrences has not diminished, however, even after AB 86 died in May of last year in Assembly Appropriations Committee.
A few weeks ago the Attorney General’s office made law enforcement aware of plans to amend a 2016 bill to cover the OIS topic. The language of the bill, to be carried by Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) who is chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, amended Government Code Section 15007 to allow DOJ to enter into a MOU with local jurisdictions regarding independent criminal investigations into officer involved shootings. That MOU would have to stipulate that DOJ may charge the local agency fees for the costs of the investigation, and that local agencies must turn over all files, documents, recordings and data as requested by DOJ.
Upon receiving this language, CPOA sent it to the Law & Legislation Committee via email for review, and they responded back with serious concerns about the implications and jurisdictional language. CPOA returned those concerns to DOJ, and were told last week that the Attorney General will not pursue the bill.
DOJ has been very active on collaborating with law enforcement on various issues, and continuously holds law enforcement stakeholder groups to provide feedback on legislative issues. CPOA looks forward to working with the Attorney General to ensure that attempts such as this do not arise again.