SAN FRANCISCO — In a direct challenge to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s position on the state’s new police transparency law, a Bay Area-based First Amendment group sued the state Justice Department on Thursday over its refusal to release officer misconduct and use-of-force records.
The lawsuit sets up another front in the battle over the new law between public records and police accountability advocates and law enforcement.
Last week, Becerra said that no records should be released until the courts settle the legal challenges brought by police unions over whether the law applies to records from past years, a process that could drag into 2020.
The San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court after it received a rejection to a request for records from the Attorney General’s Office. About 15 legal challenges by police unions are ongoing around the state, mostly in Southern California. They aim to block the release of records created before Jan. 1, 2019, the date the law, Senate Bill 1421, took effect.
Until “the legal question of retroactive application of the statute is resolved by the courts, the public interest in accessing these records is clearly outweighed by the public’s interest in protecting privacy rights,” Becerra’s office said in its denial of FAC’s request for records.
But last week, in the first judicial ruling on the issue, a Contra Costa County judge found the law can be applied to past years. An appeal is expected in that case. Despite that ruling, a growing number of agencies in recent days have been citing Becerra’s position to delay releasing records.
Becerra “is the highest law enforcement officer in the state, and (he’s) taking a position that unfortunately is now being adopted by other agencies that might have otherwise disclosed these records,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.
“It’s disturbing and it’s directly counter to what the clear purpose of this law was, and that is to disclose all records regardless of when they were created,” Snyder said.
In a statement released in response to questions about the suit, Becerra, said he was sticking with his position of waiting out the courts, citing police privacy rights the new law rescinded. “When it comes to disclosing a person’s private information, you don’t get a second chance to get it right,” he said.
The vast majority of law enforcement agencies throughout the state have agreed, and have either provided records or said they plan to do so.
Those records have exposed sexual misconduct and potential exploitation by former officers in Watsonville and Burlingame, and showed improper arrests, officer dishonesty, and a use-of-force violation in Rio Vista that led to two officers being fired.
And despite Becerra’s position, the state Department of Consumer Affairs on Monday provided records showing that a veteran San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy and state investigator had stolen thousands of bullets over his 30-year career, trading the ammunition for weapons at a friend’s gun shop. Despite the former investigator’s confession and loads of physical evidence recovered, he was never charged with theft.
