Police in California have a problem with deadly force. Last year, police shot and killed 162 people in the state, half of whom did not have guns. California departments have some of the highest rates of killings in the nation. In a 2015 report, for example, the Guardian identified central California's Kern County as the place where a member of the public is most likely to die at the hands of police.

Take action: Tell your legislators to Protect the People.

Those figures are alarming, but even more shocking were the sentiments expressed by Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood in a recently-unveiled video from 12 years ago. During a meeting with the county's Detention Officers Association, Youngblood told the audience that it is better financially for the county when his deputies kill someone rather than injure them.

"If we cripple them we get to take care of them for life, and that cost goes way up," he told the union members. "You know what happens if a guy makes a bad shooting on somebody — kills them?" Youngblood asked the audience. "Three million bucks, and the family goes away."

Sheriff Youngblood's comments show what families and communities affected by police violence already know: There is little recourse for victims of police shootings and little incentive for officers and police departments to change.

This is unacceptable. And yet, under California law, it is perfectly legal for a police officer to shoot and kill someone, even if other alternatives are available and even if the killing wasn't necessary to keep officers or the public safe. Officers are rarely held accountable because the law allows police to use deadly force whenever an "objectively reasonable" officer would have done so under the same circumstances, and courts have said that police don't have to use the least amount of force possible for their conduct to be "reasonable."

The results?

Police officers who kill people are seldom prosecuted and, so far as we know, seldom even disciplined. Between 2005 and 2016, only two police killings carried out during an arrest were deemed unjustified out of nearly 1,200 reported by local police departments, according to California Department of Justice data.

It's time for California to adopt a new, commonsense standard that recognizes the value of preserving human life. Police officers should be prohibited from using deadly force unless necessary, instead of whenever "reasonable," and they should be required to use "de-escalation" tactics to defuse a situation or other alternatives to deadly force where possible.

Assembly Bill 931, authored by Assembly Member Shirley Weber, would enshrine that rule in state law and help ensure that police use deadly force only as a last resort. The bill would also require that decision makers from police chiefs to juries look at officers' entire conduct leading up to their decision to pull the trigger. That way, officers can be held accountable for gross negligence when they escalate a situation that ends with someone dead.

These requirements are becoming more and more common across the country. A number of individual police departments have already implemented variations of AB 931's provisions, including the FBI, and some have adopted all of them. The San Francisco Police Commission recently approved a use of force policy with a necessity standard. The policy requires that officers use de-escalation techniques and alternatives to deadly force. And when a deadly shooting does occur, officers are judged on their entire conduct leading up to the shooting, not just when they pull the trigger.

Several departments have adopted similar use of force policies under the guidance of the U.S Department of Justice, including Seattle and Chicago. Two major law enforcement groups, the Police Executive Research Forum and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, have released model policy guidelines that call for higher standards than just reasonableness, including de-escalation and holding officers accountable for creating circumstances that justify deadly force.

While some police departments have adopted these policies, AB 931 would make California the first state in the country to make these best practices law for all law enforcement agencies. This would be a significant shift, and the data show that these policies work. Departments with tighter limits on when police can use force kill fewer people. At the same time, those departments see, on average, lower rates of officer assaults and similar crime rates to departments with looser standards. Reducing police deadly force helps everyone's safety.

We've seen far too many tragic and unnecessary shootings, and they won't stop until we change the law. Join us in this fight to save lives and hold police accountable.

Last week, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra provided all California public school leaders with the policies they must adopt by July to protect students from immigration enforcement while at school. 

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plyler v. Doe that undocumented students have the right to a K-12 public education.  To fulfill the promise of Plyler, we must ensure that children feel comfortable going to school and don’t have to worry that they or their families will be harassed by immigration officers as they walk in and out of school or on campus.

As a result of California Assembly Bill 699, all California public schools must have policies and procedures in place so that school teachers and administrators know how to respond if an immigration officer comes to campus to interview or arrest a student or to access a student’s educational records or information.  AB 699 also makes clear that “immigration status” is a protected characteristic in K-12 schools.  This means that students have the right to be free from any form of harassment, bullying, or discrimination in school because they are immigrants or perceived to be immigrants. This is precisely what the Attorney General’s model policies will accomplish when adopted by schools. 

Now is the time for students, families, and school communities to demand that their school leaders adopt all of the Attorney General’s model policies by July 1. This is the law. And if schools do not adopt all of the model policies by that deadline, then students, families, and school communities should report the violation to the Bureau of Children’s Justice in the California Department of Justice by emailing BCJ@doj.ca.gov, or submitting a complaint on the Bureau’s website.  The ACLU can also be contacted at (213) 977-9500 ext. 253 and at (213) 977-9500 ext. 353 for assistance in Spanish.  

Here is how to demand that your school leaders follow the law:

1. Read the Attorney General’s model policies by looking at pages 12-13, 20-22, 29-31, 34, and 37-38 of the Promoting a Safe and Secure Learning Environment for All:  Guidance and Model Policies to Assist California’s K-12 Schools in responding to Immigration Issues.  The school board must adopt all of the policies listed on each of these pages, or something that looks very similar to them.  School boards can’t pick and choose the policies they want! They must adopt them all!
2. Speak at a school board meeting during public comment and take your friends and family so that they can also urge the school board to adopt all of the Attorney General’s model policies.
3. Call, write to, or meet with your school board representative or charter school director to tell them to pass all of the Attorney General’s model policies.

To learn more about how school districts pass policies, how you can get on a school board meeting agenda to speak, or other information to be a strong advocate before your school district, check out the ACLU’s Parents’ Guide to School Board Advocacy in California available in English and Spanish.

Don’t stop there!  Students need greater protections.  We don’t want other law enforcement agencies to do ICE’s work in schools.  Take a close look at the agreements between schools and law enforcement agencies to make sure that police and school resource officers (SROs) are not gathering information for ICE, or coming to campus to talk to students and potentially asking questions about their or their family’s immigration status, which would violate the California Values Act.  Check out the ACLU’s Model Sanctuary School Board Policy for “Procedures for Identifying and Reviewing Information Sharing Agreements” (also available in Spanish) to tell your school leaders how to draft policies that include these protections.

Students also need to be protected from bullying, but police are not the answer to resolving this problem.  Demand that school leaders invest in really supporting students by providing social and emotional support, like access to school psychologists and restorative justice counselors, and spaces where students can work through problems instead of calling law enforcement to deal with discipline issues.  To learn more about restorative justice practices for schools to address bullying and other harms, check out RJOY’s Restorative Justice Implementation Guide.

Let’s demand that school leaders pass all of the model policies, limit law enforcement actions at schools, and invest in supporting the social and emotional learning needs of students.  Working together, we can make these much-needed and positive changes to ensure that every California student succeeds.