Bill banning deals that hide police misconduct, prompted by Chronicle investigation, clears hurdle
'Throughout California, dangerous and dishonest officers are skirting accountability through this practice,' the bill's author, Assembly Member Isaac Bryan, D-Culver City (Los Angeles County), told the committee.
The Chronicle investigation 'Right to Remain Secret,' produced with UC Berkeley's Investigative Reporting Program, revealed that at least 163 departments had signed 'clean-record agreements' that concealed allegations of corruption and criminality against nearly 300 officers, helping at least 108 of them to land subsequent jobs in law enforcement or as security guards.
The conduct hidden by these agreements included many accusations of serious misconduct, including sexual assault, falsifying police reports and excessive force. In many cases, the departments that agreed to bury the alleged misconduct in secret files did so despite an unwavering belief that the conduct had occurred.
As written, the bill would prohibit California law enforcement agencies from agreeing to destroy, remove, halt, modify, or conceal findings of any misconduct and void any of these promises retroactively. Additionally, the bill would make all such agreements disclosable.
Currently, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, or PORAC, the state's most powerful law enforcement lobbying organization, is the only group publicly opposing the bill. The California Police Chiefs Association and the California State Sheriffs' Association have not taken a formal position.
Testifying in opposition, PORAC's legislative advocate, Randy Perry, told the committee the bill is redundant, saying police accountability bills passed in California within the past decade have addressed this issue.
'Officers that they're using as examples would never be able to be peace officers now. They couldn't go to another department and be hired by somebody else,' Perry told the committee, referencing Senate Bill 2, which permits the state to revoke the licenses of officers accused of serious misconduct.
Bryan said that was a 'ridiculous argument,' saying, 'We just have not seen those numbers from the police certification board.' According to a website maintained by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training's website, the agency with the power to revoke licenses, only one officer identified in the Chronicle's investigation has lost his license.
As for the provision to make clean-record agreements disclosable, Perry said that the newspaper investigation, by getting access to more than 300 agreements, proved that this part of the bill is also unnecessary. He cited Senate Bill 1421 and Senate Bill 16, laws that for the first time gave the public access to specific police misconduct records.
'This bill is trying to help the press go back and get very old cases,' Perry said.
Bryan countered that 'the idea that this information is readily available is false,' noting that one-third of the agencies contacted by the Chronicle and the Investigative Reporting Program refused to disclose all or some of these secret deals, including the 10 largest agencies in the state.
In fact, the passage of SB1421 and SB16 were only part of why reporters received many of these agreements. Much of the underlying conduct covered up by the agreements does not fall in the categories of records disclosable under those transparency laws.
PORAC has offered an alternative to Bryan's bill — a clarification that any police separation agreements that conceal misconduct described in SB1421 and SB16 are disclosable. It does not propose a prohibition of these agreements.
Bryan said the amendment was not sufficient. 'These agreements shouldn't exist. They are against the public interest. They are against public safety. They allow for the worst of the worst to cover that misconduct,' he said.
PORAC has advocated for the use of clean-record agreements for years, records show. Almost every agreement obtained by reporters was executed by a small group of attorneys funded by PORAC, which is financed by police unions. Additionally, PORAC's website highlights dozens of examples of these lawyers' success in securing agreements that give officers a 'clean slate.'
The bill passed through committee with bipartisan support, with both Republicans on the committee — Juan Alanis of Modesto and Tom Lackey of Palmdale (Los Angeles County) — voting yes. The sole dissenting vote was James Ramos, D-San Bernardino. A spokesperson for the Assembly member did not explain the reason for the no vote but said Ramos is 'seriously reconsidering his vote before the bill comes to the full Assembly floor.'
'These protect the self-described bad apples of the department from whom they would like to separate,' he said. 'We need to end this practice.'
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