After police killed an unarmed black man in Sacramento earlier this month, California legislators are poised to again try to loosen some of the nation’s strictest prohibitions on the release of officer shooting and misconduct investigations.
State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) plans to introduce a bill next week that would require the disclosure of investigations of serious uses of force, including police shootings.
The legislation, which civil rights groups across the state support, is necessary because people have a right to know how law enforcement treats those cases, said Lizzie Buchen, a legislative advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union of California.
“Currently, the public is completely shut out of the entire disciplinary process,” Buchen said. “When an officer kills someone, which is an extreme example of their ability to use force, the public has no way of actually knowing how it was handled by that agency.”
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