‘Pretty staggering’: Thousands of California police officers could be stripped of their badges under new law

California’s police standards commission is bracing to decertify or suspend 3,000 to 3,500 police officers each year for serious misconduct under a new state law, according to estimates from the commission.

The estimates suggest the police officers engaging in serious misconduct in any given year could represent a significant percentage of the roughly 90,000 officers working in California, although some may already be fired or retired by the time the commission moves to strip them of their certification.

The estimates, detailed in a budget request from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, are preliminary. The commission’s new power to decertify officers took effect at the start of the year, so the commission doesn’t yet know exactly how many cases it will receive each year or how many will ultimately rise to the level of decertification. So far this year, it has already received thousands of serious misconduct complaints that it is investigating.

Lizzie Buchen, who advocated for the police decertification law and now serves on the board that will review decertification cases when they are appealed, said she was surprised that the estimates are so high.

“If we have that many officers who have committed these very serious harms against the public, that’s really serious,” said Buchen, who previously worked on criminal justice issues for the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re basically anticipating that 4% of officers in California fit into that category, which is pretty staggering.”

Julia Yoo, a San Diego-based civil rights attorney who serves as president of the National Police Accountability Project, said the estimates are worrisome, but don’t shock her.

link