In California, Agreement On New Rules For When Police Can Use Deadly Force

Speaker 1: 00:00 After much debate, both civil rights and law enforcement advocates have reached a compromise on assembly bill three 92 that legislation would change the lethal use of force standard by changing the language in the law from reasonable to necessary. Nick Miller, editor at Capitol public radio is joining us to talk about what this means for the way law enforcement in California use lethal force. Nick, welcome. Hi, this bill has been at the center of debate on police reform. Remind us of what was so controversial. Speaker 2: 00:31 The conversation started last year after unarmed black man, Stefan Clark was fatally shot by to Sacramento police officers. And that sort of sparked a discussion of the legal standard for when a law enforcement officer can use lethal force. The standard currently is when it is reasonable, when there is a reasonable fear that the officer has a threat to their life. The agreement that was a forged a on Thursday would, uh, would change that standard to necessary. So unless it's necessary for an officer to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. And that's widely viewed as a, as a higher legal standard than any existing in the United States now. So California's sort of gone from a lower to your standard to to something that's a at the forefront or at the vanguard of the entire country. Speaker 1: 01:20 And what compromises were made to get both law enforcement and civil rights advocates on the same page with us. Speaker 2: 01:25 So law enforcement, they've, they've dropped their opposition because the bill has removed some sort of definitions, what I like to refer to as sort of a checkbox of what necessary force would entail. So what that means is that when the next lethal use of force occurs, when there is a fatal encounter involving an officer, it may be up to the courts to determine that now because the language is no longer in the bill. So law enforcement, they've been collaborating with lawmakers and I'm at the bargaining table with a civil rights groups and civil liberties groups to sort of negotiate this. This is a negotiation that's been going on last year since the bill didn't pass in last year session. And uh, that's one of the big concessions that was made Speaker 1: 02:08 with that definition of necessary being taken out of this bill. Does that sort of remove the teeth, uh, that it would have had Speaker 2: 02:18 the new measure would still bar police from using lethal force unless it is necessary. So the standard right now is reasonable. Most people say that that standard has been strengthened now to necessary. But yes, there are some people who say that it's been quote water down. I think that's um, you know, we've, we've spoken to some law enforcement consultants or use of force experts who say that because there is not specific definitions of what necessary entails in the law that some of the teeth have been potentially taken out of it. And like I said, that means that it's going to be up to the courts to determine whether an officer use necessary force and they're going to have to figure that out on a case by case basis. Speaker 1: 02:58 All right. What's next for this legislation? Speaker 2: 03:00 Okay. So the bill is going to have to be voted on in the assembly next week. Um, and then it'll go to the other house, the Senate, and it could receive some minor amendments there. But what's really interesting is a senate pro tem Atkins has signed on as a joint author of this bill, which is sort of a, an overture to the fact that it probably isn't going to change that much if it makes it through the Senate. And this is sort of the, the final piece of legislation that could end up on Governor Gavin Newson's desk if it passes both houses. In the next week and a half, I've been speaking with Nick Miller, editor at Capitol public radio. Nick, thanks so much for joining us anytime. Speaker 3: 03:37 Hmm.