California's efforts to police the police are off to a slow start.
SACRAMENTO – A bill passed in the wake of the George Floyd protests now requires the state to investigate certain officer-involved shootings. But are they?
Data compiled by CalMatters reveals that the state's top cop is struggling to keep up with the new law that requires the Attorney General's Office to investigate all police shootings of unarmed people.
After a year and a half - and dozens of shootings - they've only closed one case.
Valentina Orellana-Peralta's case is among the many that remain unresolved. Her mother's anguish was palpable as she recounted the moment her daughter died in her arms inside a department store dressing room two days before Christmas.
The 14-year-old had been trying on quinceañera dresses shortly before she was struck by a stray police bullet.
Police body camera video reveals the chaos unfolding outside that dressing room where a man was violently attacking people with a bike lock.
A group of Los Angeles Police officers rushed upstairs with guns drawn, following a trail of blood, before shooting and killing the suspect.
Valentina's mother said they were hiding, hugging, and praying when a bullet pierced the dressing room wall, and Valentina died in her arms.
Valentina's death was one of 25 incidents where California officers shot and killed an unarmed person in the past 16 months.
But no two cases are the same.
Some people were shot following lengthy standoffs, others were shot seconds after officers arrived.
Some were shot after pointing non-lethal or replica guns at officers, others had nothing in their hands at all.
These types of shootings used to be investigated at the local level and officers were rarely charged.
But a new law that took effect nearly a year and a half ago now requires the Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation whenever an officer shoots someone who's unarmed. That includes people with Airsoft or replica guns.
The AG's office has accepted 25 cases over the past year and a half, but so far has only issued a report in one case.
"There have been less officer-involved shootings that qualify under AB 1506 this year than ... there were historically," Attorney General Rob Bonta said in an interview with CalMatters.
The recently re-elected Bonta told CalMatters, despite the delays from his office, he believes the law is already having an impact.
"Historically, there were 40 (shootings of unarmed people). This year there were 25," Bonta said.
As part of a new accountability project, CalMatters is tracking the attorney general's progress with a growing list of detailed accounts of every applicable shooting.
CalMatters found the department has yet to meet the attorney general's pledge to complete investigations within one year.
In the meantime, tired of waiting for the Justice Department's findings, some families have filed lawsuits.
In other cases, officers were cleared by local review commissions, while the attorney general's investigation dragged on.
This was one of those cases — the very first case that the Justice Department was required to investigate under the new law back in July of last year. LAPD officers shot and killed an unarmed man on Hollywood Boulevard after a 911 caller told police that he was threatening people with what appeared to be a pistol.
Police say the object in his hand turned out to be a lighter with a pistol grip.
The AG's office finally closed that case a couple of weeks ago, finding that the shooting was justified by self-defense and the defense of others.
"We're doing it for the first time, and we take our job very seriously. We want to do it right, comprehensively, thoroughly, accurately," Bonta said.
He says that he expected the first case to take some time, but hopes to pick up the pace moving forward.
In the meantime victims and officers continue to wait for resolutions.
The attorney general is only required to investigate shootings of unarmed people. They've declined to investigate more than half the shootings referred to their office in some cases because they considered things like garden tools a weapon.
Sacramento Assemblymember Kevin McCarty says he's now considering legislation that would require the Justice Department to review all deaths caused by officers.
CalMatters' Nigel Duara contributed to this reporting.
