California Senate Bill 1421 (2018)

Details of the bill

Newly available information

• Officer shooting at a person
• Officer use of force causing death or great bodily injury against a person
• Officer sexually assaulting a person
• Officer dishonesty about a crime or misconduct of another officer

  Redactions

• Personal information of the officer
• Information to preserve the anonymity of complainants and witnesses

  Disclosure delays

• The record is subject of an active criminal or administrative investigation
• * A record may be delayed a maximum of 60 days from use of force
• * After 60 days, a record may delayed for up to 18 months if the record expected to interfere with a proceeding
• ** Written explanations for the delay must be provided at 180 day intervals
• Criminal charges are filed related to the incident
• * The disclosure of records may be delayed until a verdict on those charges is returned at trial
• * If a plea of guilty or no contest is entered, the time to withdraw the plea pursuant to

  Additional details

• Frivolous complaints, as defined in of the Code of Civil Procedure, shall not be released
• If an officer publicly makes a statement that is false about their own investigation via an established medium, the agency may release factual information concerning the investigation

  Loopholes

Response

Delays

• The California Highway Patrol had produced no records.
• L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s department would not cooperate unless reporters identified specific cases.
• The Los Angeles County Probation Department will not release records, citing laws prohibiting records about minors from being released.
• The San Francisco Police Department has released no disciplinary records.
• The Fresno Police Department initially denied all requests.
• The San Jose Police Department, under Chief Edgardo Garcia, released only six full files 1.5 years after the law took effect.

  Fees

• West Sacramento estimated the cost to redact five shootings worth of material would be $25,000.
• LAist was charged $1,655 for redacted audio related to shootings.

  Destruction

Findings

• The Ceres police department's internal investigation found officers justified in ramming Nicholas Pimentel’s vehicle during a high speed pursuit and then using another car to pin the vehicle against a truck. Before these documents were released, the city was sued for this case and settled for $2 million.
• The San Francisco Department of Police Accountability released document showing that they found the offices who shot Alex Nieto and Amilcar Perez-Lopez to be acting within policy.
• In May 2020, the city of Fullerton published 2,400 pages of documents about the 2011 death of Kelly Thomas, revealing for example that supervisors had “edited” the reports provided by the involved officers, and that one of them had already been on a performance improvement plan due to a prior incident.

  Expansion via Senate Bill 776

• Make more records available including:
• * All use of force records available, not just those with "great bodily injury"
• * Complains that aren't sustained, closing a major loophole
• * Complaints related to actions against any protected class
• * Sustained information related to wrongful arrests or searches
• Allow police records more than five years old to be used in trial
• Require agencies to review officer history before hiring them
• Limit fees agencies can charge
• Add civil fines for agencies that don't comply