Admitting ‘There Are Some Racist Police Officers,’ Three Big California Police Unions Release Plan

Three California police unions, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, San Jose Police Officers Association, and the San Francisco Police Officers Association released a reform plan to address racial issues.

Part of a joint statement to GV Wire℠ by all three says, “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.  Police unions must root out racism wherever it rears its ugly head and root out any racist individual from our profession.”

“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.”

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Unions’ National Reform Plan

The unions’ national reform plan begins with:

• A national database of former police officers fired for gross misconduct that prevents other agencies from hiring them.
• A national use-of-force standard that emphasizes a reverence for life, de-escalation, a duty to intercede if witnessing excessive force or misconduct,  proportional responses to dangerous incidents and strong accountability provisions.
• An early warning system to identify officers that may need more training and mentoring.
• Ongoing and frequent crisis intervention and de-escalation training of police officers to build and refresh skills to improve police and community outcomes.

A transparent and publicly accessible use-of-force analysis website so that the public can monitor when and how force is used.

Full Page Advertisement

The unions publicly announced their agenda in full-page newspaper ads in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News over the weekend.

Here’s the ad.

Three large California police unions took out full page ad in major newspapers announcing a reform plan. (Courtesy: SFPOA/SJPOA/LAPPL)

Joint Statement

Here is the rest of the union’s joint statement.

“Our unions are committed to the continuous improvement of policing in America. We believe that each of our departments has made tremendous strides in strengthening accountability, transparency and adopting policies that reduce the number and severity of uses-of-force. However, we can do more, and we believe this agenda should be adopted across our nation as an important step toward improving police and community outcomes.”