3 CA Police Unions Unveil Reform Plan To 'Root Out' Racist Cops

CALIFORNIA — Three powerful California police unions unveiled a national reform agenda Sunday intended to improve the relationship between police officers and the communities they serve.

The LAPPL, the San Francisco Police Officers Association and the San Jose Police Officers Association took out full-page ads in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News and the Washington Post to announce the new agenda.

"No words can convey our collective disgust and sorrow for the murder of George Floyd," the ad begins. "We have an obligation as a profession and as human beings to express our sorrow by taking action."

The unions' proposed guidelines include:

• A national use-of-force standard that emphasizes a reverence for life, de-escalation, a duty to intercede, proportional responses to dangerous incidents and strong accountability provision mirrored after the Los Angeles Police Department;
• A national database of former police officers fired for gross misconduct that prevents other agencies from hiring them;
• An early warning system to identify officers who may need more training and mentoring modeled after the San Francisco Police Department;
• Ongoing and frequent training of police to build and refresh their skills similar to California's SB230;
• Mandate a transparent publicly accessible use-of-force analysis website similar to the San Jose Police Department's.

Accompanying the agenda is a joint statement by the three unions acknowledging racist police officers in their midst and their commitment to "root those individuals out of the law enforcement profession."

"Police officers come from and reflect our communities. Unfortunately, there is racism in our communities and that means across our country that there are some racist police officers," the statement reads.

"There are also some people who don't possess the temperament to be members of law enforcement and we must also confront and address the damage these individuals cause to the level of community trust we strive to maintain."

It wasn't immediately clear whether the reform plan would be enough to placate activists who have taken to the streets in California and across the nation. Many anti-racist advocates have argued that police departments are beyond reform and must be defunded or disbanded altogether, to be replaced by a network of social services and community programs.

City News Service contributed to this report.