Communication Received (1) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

1. Section 7071 a (2) of AB 481 states that police will discontinue the use of equipment only if the governing body fails to approve the policy within 180 days. You have 180 days—six months—to get this right. So if you have any concerns or questions, if you feel rushed, please know that you are NOT forced to act immediately as Mayor Cutter's fearmongering, Vice Mayor Ballew's misrepresentations, and Mr. Pio Roda's poor counsel may have led you to believe. 2. The ordinance you’ve been presented with covers the bare minimum of standards (for example: no reasonable alternatives explored, no data on cost-effectiveness). But AB 481 requires clear standards for EVERY CATEGORY of military equipment. We see this a little bit in the inventory document but it is a bare-bones, cookie-cutter sketch that doesn't actually explain the specific reasons or evidence underlying the use of each item. An example: “Use is authorized when it would enhance officer safety or in training environments.” This isn’t really a standard because the police department could justify anything in the name of officer safety. And the whole purpose of AB 481 based on the bill and the legislative history is to create some oversight by local legislative bodies—YOU. Do you believe a bare inventory document is going to be adequate if anyone decides to challenge this ordinance legally? Does it meet best practices for transparency and accountability? Is this the most ethical way of addressing the problems AB 481 was designed to reform? 3. Passing this ordinance as-is will be a missed opportunity to demilitarize our police department. The demilitarization of local police departments is supported by the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, which has endorsed many of your races, in a resolution passed several years back. Why do we need chemical agents, grenade launchers, an armored Bearcat tank, and 22 heavily modified, personally owned long-distance assault rifles? 4. How is it decided which officers bring a personal weapon to work and which officers don’t? Are the officer reimbursed for the cost or do they receive a stipend for using their personal weapon? How does the department enforce its equipment policy for the equipment that it doesn’t own? Are officers allowed to bring their own conducted energy weapons (tasers) and body cameras? How are the weapons stored? Is that storage audited or checked, and if so, by whom and how frequently? How is any necessary maintenance monitored and who pays for it? What is the impact on public safety through the use of personal non-standard equipment? Since many of the personally owned assault rifles can be easily customized, have any of them been modified to make it easier to pull the trigger? Who checks for modifications and how often? 5. AB 481 sets minimum requirements, but local governing bodies can adopt additional standards. Reviewing the legislative history of the law, there was an original provision stripped from the law on passage, which was to require that the public reporting on usage of military equipment by the police include an analysis of whether usage had a disparate or adverse impact on any particular community group. I believe that should be in SLPD's policy and the ordinance itself. 6. The draft SLPD policy section on “coordination with other agencies “ allows other agencies that respond to our request for mutual aid to follow their own department policies on the use of military equipment rather than ours. I believe that they should be subject to the same policies as SLPD so that community members can expect the same level of service when officers from other agencies are present and acting on behalf of our department. 7. The draft SLPD policy includes a provision for “exigent circumstances” (imminent danger) whereby the police chief, at their discretion alone can supersede the policy. That is a fraught choice that undermines