Do Cops Serve the Public or Themselves? Police Interest Groups Defeat Proposed CA Law that Would Have Limited the Use of Police Dogs to Attack People [63% of K-9 Attacks are On Blacks and Latinos]

The one with the right to rule is the master; the one with the obligation to obey is the slave. And that is true even when people choose to describe the situation using inaccurate rhetoric and deceptive euphemisms, such as “representative government,” “consent of the governed,” and “will of the people.” The notion of “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” while it makes nice feel-good political rhetoric, is a logical impossibility. A ruling class cannot serve or represent those it rules any more than a slave owner can serve or represent his slaves. The only way he could do so is by ceasing to be a slave owner, by freeing his slaves. Likewise, the only way a ruling class could become a servant of the people is by ceasing to be a ruling class, by relinquishing all of its power. “Government” cannot serve the people unless it ceases to be “government.” - Larken Rose

From [HERE] After May 2020, California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a wave of new laws to change how cops do their jobs, from banning chokeholds to decertifying officers with misconduct records and increasing investigations into fatal police shootings. 

Despite those wins for progressives, law enforcement groups flexed their power last week by blocking two controversial measures and securing changes to other bills that aim to limit the scope of their work.

Their victories underscore the significant sway that police unions and similar organizations still have in the state Capitol, where moderate Democrats and Republicans regularly team up to kill bills that law enforcement dislikes, despite the continued push by activists for more sweeping reforms. 

Here are two bills that police organizations stalled and another two that they successfully watered down before a key June 2 deadline: 

Allegedly governmental power comes from the people. That is, we delegate our individual power to the government for it to act on our behalf. However, it goes without saying that people cannot delegate powers or rights that they do not possess. So if people have delegated their powers to lawmakers and lawmakers have empowered police officers to act on our behalf, then how did police acquire the moral right to commit acts of unprovoked violence on people?

Asked differently, if you don’t have the right to initiate unprovoked acts of violence against other people then how can you delegate or authorize police officers or anyone else acting on your behalf to do so? How did government representatives and police acquire such super-human powers?

Failed: restricting the use of police dogs

Law enforcement made a bill to restrict when officers can use police dogs their biggest priority this year, and lobbied hard over the last several weeks to ensure it failed. 

Assembly Bill 742 would have banned police from using canines to arrest or apprehend people, unless there’s a threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury. The proposal still would have allowed cops to use the dogs for search and rescue and to detect narcotics and explosives.

In an opposition statement included in an analysis of the bill, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that while some restrictions were warranted, AB 742 “severely restricts an officer’s ability to employ a proven, effective, and less lethal force option that can de-escalate other potentially life-threatening situations.” 

Black and Latino people accounted for roughly 63% of canine use-of-force incidents in 2021, according to data from the state Department of Justice. Advocates supporting the bill, including the ACLU, argued that California should eliminate police use of canines in part because of their association with historic acts of racism, pointing to police dogs being used to hunt and capture slaves and against protesters during the civil rights movement.

Lawmakers were not persuaded. The bill failed to garner enough votes to pass, and Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D-Perris) pulled it from consideration. 

“At the end of the day, law enforcement is good at policing everyone but themselves,” Jackson said, adding that he’s received multiple death threats for authoring the bill. 

Failed: banning consent searches during traffic stops

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) figured the third anniversary of when a Minneapolis police officer killed Floyd would be a good opportunity to pass a bill to prohibit consent searches by officers. 

Instead, Assembly Bill 93 fell several votes short of passage, with more than two dozen Democrats opposing the measure or withholding their vote. The bill would have prohibited officers from asking for consent to search people and their vehicles during traffic stops without a warrant or other legal justification.

Bryan cited data that show the searches are disproportionately used against Black and brown people, who often don’t feel safe saying no to a consent search even if they are not doing anything illegal. 

“Guess who always says yes,” Bryan said. “Guess what happens if you say no.” 

The proposal was a top priority for the Legislative Black Caucus, and among the recommendations made by a high-profile criminal justice panel that advises state lawmakers on ways to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system and avoid longer prison terms. 

Law enforcement groups worked hard to block the bill, which they characterized as the removal of a vital public safety tool that people voluntarily agree to. 

California Police Chiefs Assn. President Alex Gammelgard said that AB 93 “was a dangerous approach that would have made our communities less safe.”

“We can continue to make improvements to public safety without these types of broad prohibitions against legitimate police work,” Gammelgard said in a written statement. [MORE]