Outraged by the fact that Minneapolis officers stayed on the sidelines while his colleague murdered George Floyd, California lawmakers are considering a strict law to punish police who fail to intervene by witnessing potential excessive force, including possible charges. penalties and the prohibition of law enforcement.
If enacted, the proposed law would put California at the forefront of legal efforts to criminalize the “blue code of silence” that many say contributed to Floyd’s death.
But the bill, drafted by Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), has sparked a fight with law enforcement agencies across the state that the rule is largely redundant, but imposes a criminal penalty on officers during situations that often involve split-second decisions.
Floyd, a black man, was killed on May 25 by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost eight minutes, until Floyd stopped responding. Three other officers at the scene were unable to stop Chauvin, although Floyd said he was unable to breathe.
“It broke my heart,” said Holden. “It was the inaction of the other officers that caused real concern because they never tried to stop him.”
Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder, second-degree murder, and involuntary manslaughter. His three colleagues, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, have been charged with aiding and abetting second degree killings and homicides.
Holden’s bill would make bystanders an accessory to any crime committed by the agent using improper force if they don’t take action.
Holden said that despite current mandates and policies that give officers the duty to intervene, their move is necessary to clarify what that action means and how officers should be trained. It would also provide whistleblower protection to officers who report excessive force, and would prohibit a person from remaining as an officer if it is discovered that they have used excessive force unnecessarily resulting in, or did not intervene in, a large bodily injury or death.
“There must be a physical intervention,” he said. “You also need to make sure that the body camera is on, that there is an effort to reduce the situation.”
But law enforcement officials said the bill is unfair to agents because it fails to take into account that the Floyd case, in which agents had time to react, is an anomaly. They said that most use of force occurs quickly, and often in chaotic situations, and that keeping officers in an uncompromising duty to intervene is neither practical nor fair.
“This misguided proposal criminalizes officers who may not have a full understanding of the incident and have different points of view. Strong policies, strong training and fair discipline are far more appropriate than criminal penalties, ”the Los Angeles Police Protection League board of directors said in a statement.
Ed Obayashi, a statewide police coach, said the move was “impractical” and presented a comprehensive solution to a limited problem. Obayashi said a situation like Floyd’s death, where other officers are present but not actively involved, is rare, and legislating for it could create confusion in more common situations.
He gave the example of recent protests in which the use of rubber bullets and other projectiles have been questioned as excessive force, noting that it would have been difficult for other officers present in those situations to determine whether the force was justified and whether they had a duty to to intervene.
“It is a slippery slope because what are you going to say, that you have 30 officers in a skirmish line and one deploys a projectile and hits someone in the head. What are the other officers supposed to do? I ask.
The proposal also sparked law enforcement anger over language that would have voided a deal negotiated last year to pass Assembly Bill 392, which renewed the use of California’s force law. That contentious move brought weeks of emotional protests to the Capitol in the wake of the Sacramento police shooting of Stephon Clark who mistaken his cell phone for a weapon.
Governor Gavin Newsom designed a last-minute compromise between law enforcement officials and advocates for reform that convinced police to end opposition to the measure, but softened some of its language. That agreement focused largely on the definition, or lack thereof, of a single word: necessary.
Proponents of police reform wanted a clear definition that lethal force could only be used when other options had been exhausted. Police successfully argued that strict definition was not always possible. The word was eventually left in the law, but its meaning was left to the discretion of prosecutors and the courts.
Earlier this week, AB 392 author Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) added a definition of what “necessary” means to both Holden’s bill and another.
Police lobbyists were angered, calling it a backdoor measure to undo the deal negotiated by Newsom.
The Weber bill, AB 1709, will not move forward this year.
Holden said Wednesday that he was unaware of the importance of the language, and is in the process of removing that part of the bill. He said, “We were recently told that this was part of the Governor’s negotiation with the police with [AB] 392 “and did not intend to change the state’s use of force law again.
