It happened.
Last month, the California State Senate passed AB 392, the California Act to Save Lives, which will explicitly restrict police violence by only allowing officers to use deadly force when it's absolutely necessary.
This is a major victory for police accountability and for Californians across the state.
This bill is long overdue: In 2017 alone, California law enforcement killed 172 people, half of whom didn’t have guns — and three quarters of those unarmed were people of color. Both in California and nationally, just under half of those killed by police had a disability or mental illness.
Assemblymember Shirley Weber introduced this bill to prevent these deadly tragedies from happening in the first place. And our SoCal Criminal Justice Committee has been working with Bend the Arc’s other California criminal justice reform teams in the Bay Area, South Bay, and San Luis Obispo to pass it.
We are proud to have worked with Youth Justice Coalition, ACLU, STOP Coalition, CA Families United for Justice, and communities across the state to push this bill through the Assembly and the Senate. This victory wouldn’t be possible without the families and organizers who never stopped speaking up for those who have been stolen from us by police violence.
Now, the bill on its way to Governor Newsom’s desk to become law — and we’ll be working to make sure it’s enforced and that Californians are protected from police brutality.
