3 Calif. Police Unions Unveil National Reform Agenda To Improve Policing
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Three powerful California police unions, including the Los Angeles Police Protective League, have unveiled a national reform agenda they hope improves the relationship between officers and the communities they serve.
The proposed reforms come amid nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd and includes a national use-of-force standard that emphasizes de-escalation and a national database of former police officers fired for gross misconduct.
Other proposed changes include an early warning system to identify officers that may need more training and a transparent and publicly accessible use-of-force analysis site.
The unions, which also include the San Jose and San Francisco police officers associations, issued the below joint statement:
"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.
"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."