Black Lives Matter protesters demand Jerry Brown’s support for police profiling measure

Chanting “Black lives matter!” and staging a massive “die-in,” scores of people rallied Wednesday at the state Capitol in support of legislation that seeks to stamp out racial profiling by law enforcement.

Protesters marched through the streets and then crowded the halls outside the office of Gov. Jerry Brown, demanding his signature for Assembly Bill 953, which still must clear the state Senate before it reaches the governor’s desk. It would require law enforcement to gather and report data on stops, something advocates hope will illuminate the extent of racial profiling.

The bill, by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, was one of several police-focused measures introduced this year amid tensions and violence between officers and communities. Critics, in urging its defeat in the Legislature, have derided the proposal as too costly.

Though demonstrators chanted for an audience with Brown, he was not in Sacramento. Instead, Weber called on Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, to accept a petition from the demonstrators.

“You’re making your voice heard today. That’s your right, your responsibility,” Atkins said. “We’re going to keep working on this.”

After addressing the crowd outside the Capitol, Weber said her bill was necessary because of California’s comparatively high death rate at the hands of police.

“When we look at the issues of racial profiling we discover that African Americans and Latinos are stopped two and three times more than anybody else, and yet have a lower arrest record,” she said, as activists read the names of victims. “So, obviously you’re stopping them without a cause to arrest them.”

The stop, Weber said, becomes the foundation “for other things happening” after.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article33543921.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article33543921.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article33543921.html#storylink=cpy

Jerry Brown signs bill banning grand juries in police use-of-force cases

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation prohibiting the use of grand juries in California in cases where police officers use lethal force, a response to distrust of the grand jury process following the deaths of unarmed black men in other states.

Proponents of Senate Bill 227 argued the grand jury process is too secretive and allowed prosecutors to avoid decision-making responsibility in politically charged cases.

“One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to understand why SB 227 makes sense,” the bill’s author, Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, said in a prepared statement after Brown announced signing the bill Tuesday. “The use of the criminal grand jury process, and the refusal to indict as occurred in Ferguson and other communities of color, has fostered an atmosphere of suspicion that threatens to compromise our justice system.”

Law enforcement groups representing district attorneys and police chiefs opposed the bill. The Democratic governor signed the measure without comment.

Brown also signed Senate Bill 411, clarifying that people can shoot video of police.

“Today, California makes it unequivocal – you have the right to record,” Sen. Ricardo Lara, the bill’s author, said in a prepared statement.

Via: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article30736917.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article30736917.html#storylink=cpy

California anti-profiling bill requires data on police stops

California lawmakers on Wednesday narrowly approved anti-racial profiling legislation ordering unprecedented data collection on police stops, as they grapple with reducing tensions between law enforcement and minority communities.

It was one of dozens of bills considered ahead of a Friday deadline to pass legislation out of one chamber of the Legislature. The Senate also approved an ambitious climate change package that would boost the use of renewable energy to 50 percent in 15 years and slash greenhouse gas emissions.

In the Assembly, AB953 barely advanced to require law enforcement agencies starting in 2018 to report a racial breakdown of whom they pull over or question. It is one of few surviving police reform bills introduced in the wake of nationwide protests over police killings of minority men.

AB953's author, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, said she believed police pulled her over because they thought she was out of place in her own neighborhood. Weber is black.

"When do we stop the cycle? When do we say enough is enough in this country?" the San Diego Democrat said.

Her bill calls for police departments, sheriff's offices and other agencies to write annual reports breaking out the number of stops, the outcomes (such as citations or arrests) and the age and race of those stopped. Law enforcement groups say such data tracking is unnecessary and would distract from keeping communities safe.

Supporters of the bill countered that data collection could end up showing that racial discrimination by police isn't as widespread as believed.

"It will help law enforcement, especially now when the public believes there is something dramatically wrong with their interactions with people of color," said Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat who leads the Legislative Black Caucus.

Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, was the only lawmaker to speak against the bill, saying "labeling police officers as part of the problem isn't helpful."

The bill heads to the Senate after passing 41-23, the minimum needed to advance.

Other police reform legislation has struggled in California this year.

A fiscal panel last week shelved legislation requiring independent investigations of police shootings and an annual report about deaths in police custody. Another bill regulating the use of police body cameras, AB66 also by Weber, is at a standstill over whether officers should be able to review footage before submitting reports about shooting people.

Via: http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/06/03/52189/california-anti-profiling-bill-requires-data-on-po/