BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 619
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 21, 2015
Counsel: Stella Choe
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Bill Quirk, Chair
AB
619 (Weber) - As Amended April 15, 2015
SUMMARY: Requires law enforcement agencies to report use of
force incidents to the Attorney General (AG) and requires the AG
to annually issue a report containing this information.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires, beginning January 1, 2018, each state and local
agency that employs a peace officer to annually report to the
AG data on the use of force by that agency's sworn personnel.
2)Provides that the uses of force to be reported include any use
of force resulting in or contributing to medical treatment or
hospitalization of a person, and any of the following types of
force:
a) The discharge of a firearm at a person;
b) Use of an electronic control or conducted energy device
on a person;
c) A strike by a baton or other instrument; and,
d) Any strike to a person's head, neck, or chest.
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3)Requires each report made pursuant to the above provisions to
include, at minimum, the following information:
a) The time, date, and location of the use of force or
death;
b) The setting in which the use of force occurred,
including, but not limited to, a traffic stop, pedestrian
stop, or in a correctional facility or other correctional
setting;
c) The characteristics of each peace officer involved in
the use of force or death, including, but not limited to,
each officer's race, ethnicity, gender, age, assignment,
division or station, shift, and whether the officer was in
uniform;
d) A description of any person upon whom a use of force was
applied, or of the person who died. A description of a
person upon whom a use of force was applied shall be based
on the observation and perception of the peace officer who
used force, and the information shall not be requested from
the person upon whom force was used, unless otherwise
required by law. The description shall include, but not be
limited to the following:
i) The race, ethnicity, and age of the person;
ii) The sexuality and religion of the person, if any is
perceived;
iii) Whether the person had limited English proficiency;
iv) Whether the person had any perceived mental or
physical disability, or preexisting injury or medical
condition;
v) Whether mental health personnel were called to the
scene of the use of force or death, and whether the
personnel were called before or after the use of force or
death occurred;
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vi) Whether the person was homeless; and,
vii) Whether the person was perceived to be under the
influence of alcohol or narcotics;
e) Whether the officer previously stopped the person upon
whom force was applied prior to the incident;
f) Whether the person was armed, and if so, with what type
of weapon; and,
g) Details, if applicable, concerning the force used by the
officer, including but not limited to:
i) The type of force used;
ii) Any injuries sustained by the person; and,
iii) The length of time between when force was used and
when the person received medical treatment.
4)Applies the reporting requirements in this bill to the current
provision of law that requires law enforcement agencies to
report to the AG deaths of persons while in custody.
5)Provides that "custody" for purposes of the above provision
includes, but is not limited to, any point in time when a
person's freedom of movement is curtailed or limited by a
peace officer, or when a person is led to believe, as a
reasonable person, that he or she is so deprived of the
freedom to move, such as during a stop, a stop and frisk, an
interrogation, an arrest, transport prior to booking, or
correctional confinement.
6)Specifies that the writings described in the provisions above
are public records within the meaning of the California Public
Records Act.
7)States that the AG shall annually issue a report that
summarizes the information collected pursuant to the
provisions of this bill. The report shall list the statewide
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total number separately from the disaggregated total number
for each of the data collection criteria specified for each
agency that submits a report.
8)Directs the AG to make the reports available to the public by
posting those reports in their entirety on the Department of
Justice's (DOJ) Internet Web site. The first reports shall be
posted no later than July 1, 2018. The reports shall remain
posted on DOJ's Internet Web site in order to be available to
the public in an ongoing, continuous manner.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides that it is the duty of each city marshal, chief of
police, railroad and steamship police, sheriff, coroner,
district attorney, city attorney and city prosecutor having
criminal jurisdiction, as well as other agencies or persons
dealing with crimes and criminals or with delinquency or
delinquents, when requested by the AG:
a) To install and maintain records needed for the correct
reporting of statistical data required by the AG;
b) To report statistical data to the DOJ at those times and
in the manner that the AG proscribes; and,
c) To give to the AG, or his or her accredited agent,
access to the statistical data for the purpose of carrying
out the purposes of carrying out the relevant law. (Pen.
Code, § 13020.)
2)Requires each sheriff and chief of police to annually furnish
the DOJ, in the manner prescribed by the Attorney General, a
report of all justifiable homicides committed in his or her
jurisdiction. In cases where both a sheriff and chief of
police would be required to report a justifiable homicide
under this section, only the chief of police shall report the
homicide. (Pen. Code, § 13022.)
3)States that, subject to the availability of adequate funding,
the AG shall direct local law enforcement agencies to report
to DOJ, in a manner to be prescribed by the AG, any
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information that may be required relative to hate crimes, as
specified, and requires, on or before July 1 of each year, DOJ
to submit a report to the Legislature analyzing the results of
the information obtained from local law enforcement agencies.
(Pen. Code, § 13023, subds. (a) and (b).)
4)Includes within DOJ's annual reporting requirements the number
of citizens' complaints received by law enforcement agencies.
These statistics shall indicate the total number of these
complaints, the number alleging criminal conduct of either a
felony or misdemeanor, and the number sustained in each
category. The report shall not contain a reference to any
individual agency but shall be by gross numbers only. (Pen.
Code, § 13012, subd. (e).)
5)Mandates in any case in which a person dies while in the
custody of any law enforcement agency or while in custody in a
local or state correctional facility in this state, the law
enforcement agency or the agency in charge of the correctional
facility shall report in writing to the AG, within 10 days
after the death, all facts in the possession of the law
enforcement agency or agency in charge of the correctional
facility concerning the death. Proscribes that these writings
are public records within the meaning of the California Public
Records Act and are open to public inspection, except
confidential medical information. (Gov. Code, § 12525.)
6)California Public Records Act generally provides that access
to information concerning the conduct of the people's business
is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this
state. (Gov. Code, § 6250 et. seq.)
7)Provides that public records are open to inspection at all
times during the office hours of the state or local agency and
every person has a right to inspect any public record, except
as provided. Any reasonably segregable portion of a record
shall be available for inspection by any person requesting the
record after deletion of the portions that are exempted by
law. (Gov. Code, § 6253)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
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COMMENTS:
1)Author's Statement: According to the author, "Peace officers
risk their lives daily, and the people of California greatly
appreciate their hard work and dedication to public safety.
Recently, the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing,
FBI Director James Comey, state Attorney General Kamala
Harris, and the people of California have all expressed a
significant interest in strengthening police-community
relationships through adopting evidenced-based approaches to
public safety. In furtherance of this goal, AB 619 would
enhance transparency by ensuring that death in custody and law
enforcement use of force data is regularly made available to
the public."
2)Reporting on Criminal Statistics: DOJ is statutorily required
to collect and maintain data and develop statistical reports
related to crime and the criminal justice process in
California. Local agencies are also statutorily required to
maintain statistical data and provide those to DOJ.
Under existing law, local law enforcement agencies are required
to report to DOJ all justifiable homicides committed in that
agency's jurisdiction. (Pen. Code, § 13022.) Local
jurisdictions must also report on the number of non-criminal
and criminal complaints reported by citizens against law
enforcement personnel and the number of complaints that were
sustained. (Pen. Code, § 13012.) Arrest information from
local agencies must also be provided to DOJ in order to
maintain its arrest and citation database. (Pen. Code, §§
13020 and 13021.) This database contains information
including name, race/ethnicity, date of birth, sex, date of
arrest, offense level, offense type, status of the offense,
and law enforcement disposition. (Office of the Attorney
General, Criminal Statistics Reporting Requirements (April
2014), p. 8.) Using statistical data from local
jurisdictions, DOJ publishes an annual report on crime, as
well as other reports as required by statute.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation also collects data on deadly
force used by officers, but reporting by law enforcement
agencies is voluntary, and the data only covers justifiable
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homicides. "[B]etween 400 and 500 times a year, an officer
kills a citizen in what police consider justifiable homicide
of a felon-usually under threat from an armed citizen. But
there is no reliable way of knowing what that number would be
if included a comprehensive tally of all incidents-including,
for example, those not considered justified." (Neumann, How
Often Do Cops Kill Citizens? Why, Given "Scandalous" Data
Gaps, Nobody Knows, California Magazine (Feb. 2015).) A
recent study conducted by Franklin Zimring, Professor of Law
at the University of California at Berkeley, found that in the
past four decades, there has been a downward trend in the
number of killings both of, and by, police. While the ratio
of citizens killed by police, to police killed, was about 3 to
1, it now is nearly 8 to 1. Although police killings of whites
are drastically higher than police killings of
African-Americans, killings of African-Americans are
proportionally about three times higher than whites. (Zimring
and Arsiniega, Trends in Killings of and by Police: A
Preliminary Analysis, 2015, Ohio State Journal of Criminal
Law, Vol. 13.)
This bill requires local law enforcement agencies to report to
DOJ incidents of use of force by its officers. Use of force
refers to any use of force resulting in or contributing to
medical treatment or hospitalization, or when certain weapons
are used such as a firearm or baton. The bill also requires
specified information to be reported about the person upon
whom use of force was used, such as the perceived
characteristics of the person, the setting in which the force
was used, the type of force used, and the type of injury
sustained. This bill also applies these reporting requirements
on the current duty of law enforcement agency to report deaths
in custody. The purpose of this bill is to address the
deficiency of data on police use of force and to enhance
transparency by ensuring that the data is made available to
the public.
3)Argument in Support: According to the Youth Justice
Coalition, a co-sponsor of this bill, "In response to the
apparent increase in law enforcement use of force, we sought
data on the number of people killed by law enforcement and was
shocked to find that local law enforcement agencies either
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didn't keep accurate data, or didn't release it regularly to
the public. We pulled together homicide data from the
Coroner's Office and combined it with the experiences of
victims' families in order to issue a report on use of force
in Los Angeles County. The data revealed that LA County leads
the nation on officer-involved homicides; at least 618 people
have been killed since 2000.
"Similarly, throughout California, the public is far too often
left in the dark when it comes to information about force used
by law enforcement. All state and local law enforcement
agencies have submitted information concerning deaths in
custody - including those that occur during arrest - to the
state Department of Justice since 1980. However, the DOJ has
been unable to provide the public with detailed information
about such deaths on a routine basis. In fact, its last report
on the issue, released in 2005, provided less than four-pages
of information, highlighted that it was 'intended as a brief
overview,' and explained that 'additional detailed research
could be done if resources were available.' This lack of
transparency not only inhibits public trust, but also hinders
the development of potentially life-saving law enforcement
reforms. . . .
"AB 619 will expand the current death in custody reporting
requirement to include use of force that results in serious
bodily injury. It would also ensure that the public has
regular access to important facts concerning law enforcement
use of force practices."
4)Related Legislation:
a) AB 71 (Rodriguez) would require local law enforcement
agencies to annually furnish a report to DOJ of all
instances when a peace officer is involved in shootings
that occur in his or her jurisdiction where an individual
or a peace officer is injured or killed and require DOJ to
include a summary of the information received in its annual
crime report.
b) AB 86 (McCarty) would require DOJ to conduct an
independent investigation if a peace officer, in the
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performance of his or her duties, uses deadly physical
force upon another person and that person dies as a result
of the use of that deadly force, and would require DOJ to
prepare and submit a written report setting forth specified
information and recommendations. AB 86 will be heard by
this Committee today.
c) AB 953 (Weber) would establish RIPA to eliminate racial
and identity profiling and improve diversity and racial
sensitivity in law enforcement. AB 953 is being heard by
the Committee today.
d) SB 227 (Mitchell) would prohibit the use of grand jury
in cases of officer-involved shootings or in cases where
excessive force used by an officer results in the death of
a suspect. SB 227 is pending hearing by the Senate
Committee on Public Safety.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
American Civil Liberties Union of California (Sponsor)
Youth Justice Coalition (Co-Sponsor)
A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment & Healing)
A New Way of Life Reentry Project
Alliance for Boys and Men of Color
API Equality-LA
Asian Law Alliance
Black Women for Wellness
California Federation of Teachers
California Public Defenders Association
Californians United for a Responsible Budget
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
Central American Resource Center - Los Angeles
Coalition on American-Islamic Relations, California Chapter
Community Coalition
Council on American-Islamic Relations, California Chapter
Courage Campaign
Dignity and Power Now
Drug Policy Alliance
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Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Empowering Pacific Islander Communities
Equality California
FACTS Education Fund
Fair Chance Project
Filipino Migrant Center of Southern California
Friends Committee on Legislation of California
GSA Network
Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Coalition
InterCity Struggle
Japanese Americans Citizens League - Pacific Southwest District
Justice for Immigrants Coalition of Southern Inland California
Justice Not Jails
K.W. Lee Center for Leadership
LA Voice
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition
Los Angeles Black Worker Center
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership
National Association of Social Workers - California Chapter
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Employment Law Project
New Covenant Church
Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California
Progressive Christians Uniting
Public Advocates
Riverside Coalition for Police Accountability
Root & Rebound
Sacramento Area Congregations Together
San Francisco Organizing Project
San Francisco Tenants Union
Social Justice Learning Institute
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
Starting Over, Inc.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Whittier Law School
The Brown Boi Project
The Greenlining Institute
The W. Haywood Burns Institute
Transgender Law Center
True North Organizing Network
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Two private individuals
Opposition
None
Analysis Prepared
by: Stella Choe / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744