California adopts country's strictest law on police use of deadly force

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/19/california-use-of-force-law-stephon-clark

Version 0 of 4.

California adopted the strictest law in the United States limiting when police can use deadly force.

Come 1 January, law enforcement in the state will only be allowed if the “officer reasonably believes ... that deadly force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury”.

Gavin Newsom, the California governor, signed the legislation on Monday.

“California should and will ask more of their officers,” said Peter Bibring, the director of police practices at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The ACLU was one of the sponsors of the bill.

“This is landmark legislation that makes California a model for other states,” Bibring continued. “We’ve seen this standard put into practice with other police departments. We expect this legislation will save lives.”

The legislation, which is aimed at reducing police shootings, was inspired by the 2018 police shooting of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black father of two killed by police in his grandparents’ backyard in Sacramento when officers mistook his cellphone for a gun.

Under this new law, should investigators determine that an officer used lethal force when there was a reasonable alternative, the officer could face criminal charges, civil liability and disciplinary action.

'Are they going to violate my rights?': California's battle over police body cameras

The current constitutional case law standard across the US sets the bar for use of force at “objectively reasonable”, which civil rights advocates and families of people killed by police have long criticized as being set too low. The current law allows officers to argue a shooting was justified if they feared for their lives and acted in self-defense and prosecutors have used it to justify not bringing criminal charges against officers in the shootings of unarmed civilians.

“I believe that a law like AB 392 could have saved Diante’s life,” said Ciara Hamilton in a statement, referring to her cousin Diante Yarber who was killed in Barstow on 5 April 2018. “Police officers should always do everything in their power to preserve life. I shouldn’t have to fear for my life because police officers mistake my phone for a gun or shoot into a vehicle that I’m in because of the color of my skin.”

California police kill people at a rate 37% higher than the national average per capita, according to the ACLU. Police in the state killed 172 people in 2017, more than two-thirds of whom were people of color. Police in Kern county, California, killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015, a Guardian investigation found.

The bill had to undergo several amendments before it passed in the state assembly and the senate, the most serious of which included removing the requirement of de-escalation.

Barack Obama’s task force on 21st century policing had recommended that police officers create time and distance and de-escalate tensions when interacting with subjects, and the concept has been adopted as the preferred course of action throughout law enforcement. But law enforcement unions opposed codifying it in the bill, as officers would have been found criminally negligent and civilly liable for not taking steps to de-escalate before shooting.

“We knew that it would be an uphill battle, especially with police associations opposing the bill,” said Melina Abdullah, the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chapter lead. “Unfortunately, in efforts to get law enforcement to lift their opposition, the bill was so significantly amended that it is no longer the kind of meaningful legislation we can support.”