California’s police standards commission is bracing to decertify or suspend 3,000 to 3,500 police officers each year for serious misconduct under a new state law, according to estimates from the commission.
The estimates suggest the police officers engaging in serious misconduct in any given year could represent a significant percentage of the roughly 90,000 officers working in California, although some may already be fired or retired by the time the commission moves to strip them of their certification.
These cops are ones who have been confirmed “using excessive force, committing sexual assault, displaying bias and participating in a law enforcement gang.” I don’t have a single problem with this at all. But the prevalence is dismaying (if not too surprising).
The estimates come as the Newsom administration is seeking to roll back part of the law that would require the commission to provide investigative records in response to public records laws.
The change wouldn’t completely shield those records from disclosure because members of the public could still request them through local police departments, but criminal justice reform advocates and press freedom groups argue the change would make those records harder to access.
Why can’t Newsom just leave it alone? Is the police union really that powerful? The fact that this passed should show that it isn’t.
Is the police union really that powerful?
Yes.
I remember when Arnold was governor and was trying to balance the budget. He found out how much we were spending on prisons, and how many prisoners were there for nonviolent drug crimes. He publicly suggested letting specifically those people out. Within a couple of days, wall-to-wall radio ads started running… “Little Suzie was raped and murdered by a PAROLEE!!! Schwarzenegger wants to let PAROLEES JUST LIKE THAT loose in YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!”. He dropped the idea.
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