AB 60

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing laws defines persons who are peace officers and the entities authorized to appoint them. Existing law requires certain minimum training requirements for peace officers including the completion of a basic training course, as specified. Existing law prescribes certain minimum standards for a person to be appointed as a peace officer, including moral character and physical and mental condition, and certain disqualifying factors for a person to be employed as a peace officer, including a felony conviction. This bill would disqualify a person from being employed as a peace officer if that person has been convicted of, or has been adjudicated by a military tribunal as having committed an offense that would have been a felony if committed in this state. The bill would also disqualify any person who has been certified as a peace officer by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training and has had that certification revoked by the commission. (2) Existing law establishes the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to set minimum standards for the recruitment and training of peace officers and to develop training courses and curriculum. Existing law authorizes the commission to establish a professional certificate program that awards basic, intermediate, advanced, supervisory, management, and executive certificates on the basis of a combination of training, education, experience, and other prerequisites, for the purpose of fostering the professionalization, education, and experience necessary to adequately accomplish the general police service duties performed by peace officers. Existing law authorizes the commission to cancel a certificate that was awarded in error or obtained through misrepresentation or fraud, but otherwise prohibits the commission from canceling a certificate that has properly been issued. This bill would require the commission to create a certification program for specified peace officers. The bill would make all records related to the revocation of a peace officer's certification public. This bill would require a peace officer's certificate to be suspended, revoked, or canceled when the person is ineligible to be a peace officer or when the person has been subject to a sustained termination for serious misconduct, as defined, on or after January 1, 2022. The bill would make each law enforcement agency responsible for investigation, findings, and actions by the agency on allegations of serious misconduct and would give the commission access to the agency files. The bill would require the commission to be notified of and to review a peace officer's file after 3 allegations of serious misconduct within 5 years. The bill would establish the Peace Officer Standards Accountability Advisory Board, as specified, to make recommendations on the decertification of peace officers to the commission. The bill would require every law enforcement agency to notify the commission when a peace officer employed by that agency separates from employment. When a peace officer resigns or retires with a pending complaint, charge, or investigation of serious misconduct, the bill would require the law enforcement agency to complete the investigation into the serious misconduct within 90 days and report to the commission whether the complaint of serious misconduct was sustained, not sustained, unfounded, frivolous, or exonerated. The bill would require the commission to refer the files of peace officers whose termination for serious misconduct was sustained to the board to make a recommendation regarding the status of the officer's certificate and would require the commission to accept that recommendation or set forth the analysis and reasons for reaching a different result in writing. (3) Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined. This bill would make those requirements applicable to data obtained from unmanned aircraft systems. By imposing new requirements on local agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.