Details on California Senate Bill (SB) 2: Decertification of Police Officers with Multiple Misconduct Incidents

On September 8 2021, California Legislature passed SB 2, The Kenneth Ross Jr. Police Decertification Act of 2021, that will implement a decertification process for violence-prone officers The bill is now headed to Governor Gavin Newsom, who helped broker the bill, and it expected to be passed into law in the upcoming weeks.

California was 1 of 4 states that has provided a loophole for repeat offending officers to continue be employed after they are involved in serious misconduct. California Senate Bill 2, authored by California Senator Steven Bradford (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D – San Diego), will implement a statewide system for revoking the license of police officers who commit serious misconduct and would increase accountability by preventing bad cops from be employed by other agencies.

Prior to the amendments of SB 2, the law has allowed violence-prone officers to continue to wear a badge after their involvement in serious misconduct and provided certain immunities to those officers. These legal protections are why corrupt police officers have continued to stay on the streets after illegal shootings and other police brutality cases.

Under the new law, SB 2 will increase police accountability and bring justice to the victims and families that have been mistreated by police officers. As outlined by the ACLU, the new law will implement the following actions:

• Establishing a statewide process to automatically decertify officers who have been fired for serious misconduct.
• Creating a new accountability division within POST that will independently investigate allegations of serious misconduct of officers who resign before they are fired.
• Creates a civilian-led advisory board that will review the investigations of the accountability division and make recommendations to POST as to whether an officer should be decertified. The advisory board will be composed for seven public members and two law enforcement representatives.
• Requiring local law enforcement to report fired officers to the state and ensure that during the hiring process California law enforcement agencies contact the state to find out why an officer left their previous positions.
• Adding officers who are decertified to the National Decertification Index (NDI), a national database that tracks decertified officers across state lines.