A few weeks ago, the Contra Costa County

D

District Attorney has released the results of a survey that found up to 40% of police officers in Antioch, a Bay Area enclave with a majority of non

–

white residents were associated with a racist texting chain.

Calling black people “monkeys” and “gorillas” wasn’t the worst part. The messages, spanning a period of several years, used the

N

N-word repeatedly and joked about targeting people based on skin color. They may end up documenting civil rights violations based on race.

Under a new state law, the California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform (CLEAR) Act, also known as Assembly Bill 655, such hate speech can be a felony requiring termination if justified.

Many police officers are unaware of the law, said Ed Obayashi, an attorney and Plumas County sheriff’s deputy who advises law enforcement departments statewide about social media misconduct. And most of them, he added, don’t understand what its full implications might be.

Obayashi

told me hey

has tried to get his colleagues to pay attention to the CLEAR Act, but has not had much luck.

The scandal in Antioch can finally get their attention. If the city of Antioch tries to punish its officers using the CLEAR law, it could set a precedent for future cases and curb our tolerance for hatred behind a badge.

The CLEAR Act was written to combat extremism in law enforcement and to root out officers who are members of known hate groups. But Obayashi and the bill’s author, San Jose Democrat Ash Kalra, argue that six words in the new law

which that

banning “advocacy of public expressions of hatred” broaden it to much more than joining the Proud Boys or dealing with neo-Nazis. Obayashi believes the intent of the law, which took effect Jan. 1, is clear: “Any racial bias, you’re looking at mandatory terminations.”

A state spokesperson

department Department

Justice Department said in an email that the department is working on the details of the regulations. Antioch Police Chief Steven A. Ford did not respond to an email regarding the CLEAR Act.

Antioch Police Department mired in racism allegations, first in text messages, now in a brutality lawsuit

Racist behavior involving law enforcement remains shocking but unsurprising. Every few months it seems like a new disgrace bubbles up like sewage from a broken pipe.

Aug

2022

my colleague James Queally reported on such an incident in Torrance when an officer used the nN word while texting another officer about family members protesting the shooting of a young black man, Christopher

DeAndre Deander

mitchell

About the

P

police in recent years

the sheriffs of the sheriffs

departments, including some in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Eureka, and Sacramento, have experienced similar problems.

And of course there is Los Angeles

District,

where deputy gangs in the

S

from the sheriff

office department

with their not-so-secret tattoos (a very obvious form of communication), have cost the city about $55 million in lawsuits

in the past decade

according to a 2020 report from the Brennan Center for Justice.

Some of those officers were fired. Some were not. Until AB

6

55, the rules were not explicit and departments largely imposed their chosen discipline. But the CLEAR Act is final; if an officer is found to be in violation, the department has no choice but to fire him.

like, say,

officers

repeatedly use racial slurs while patrolling a diverse neighborhood. Those Antioch text messages, even if shared on personal phones, expect little privacy, Obayashi argues. And once they go public, they can launch an investigation under the CLEAR Act that can investigate anything the officer has said or done publicly for seven years.

Obayashi teaches officers that their

First 1st

Amendment rights do not protect them from their obligations as peace officers. Making racist or hateful comments on any forum Facebook, Twitter, SMS is bad police work.

“If you do this, I don’t care if you’re racist or not, you’re too stupid to be a cop,” he said.

Kalra,

the author of the bill,

told me

the

“certainly the intent was to weed out officers who have the kind of attitude officers have in Antioch.”

Civil oversight committee calls on sheriff to ban deputy gangs and ban their rituals

The racial slurs, misogyny and disdain are all signs of extremism, he said. Even if the officers in the texting chain are not explicitly in a hate group, their actions are dangerous because of the power they hold.

“They are definitely extremist views when we consider what the role of a police officer is,” Kalra said.

And for some of the Antioch officers it seems

like as if

that maybe hate went beyond words. Some lyrics refer to officers using excessive force or attacking individuals based on race.

Along with a federal lawsuit by some Antioch residents targeted by the lyrics,

another Latino couple has filed a lawsuit claiming they were attacked by officers based on their race.

Of course, the officers involved in the Antioch scandal are entitled to a fair trial. Mike Rains, representing both Antioch police officers

Association Association (APOA)

and some of the individual agents involved in the scandal said he doesn’t believe the CLEAR law applies to something like a text message chain because it’s not connected to a hate group or specific hate crime.

“Even if it’s repulsive, even if it contains things that on the face of it sound hateful about a person, about race, I don’t know

think

that qualifies in itself,” he said.

He also believes that the Antioch officers who received the messages but did not actively participate in the texting chain should not be judged in the same way as those pushing the conversation.

and that their silent presence should not be interpreted as consent.

“Those officers are the ones who pay a pretty high price simply because they’re on a text message chain,” Rains said.

Right now, he said, most California departments don’t have rules requiring officers to report biased or racist statements by their co-workers, which seems like something we should demand, just as we insist.

That

Officers intervene if they see excessive force.

John Burris, a civil rights attorney representing some members of the Antioch community in the federal lawsuit, doesn’t think inaction is exculpatory.

“You don’t get credit for silence,” he said.

How far the CLEAR Act goes may depend on how far police chiefs and sheriffs want it to go. If they keep trying to sweep prejudice under the carpet, the law may mean little. But that old-fashioned approach has become a losing tactic, both for leaders who want to keep their jobs and for those who really care about bringing a new and different kind of officer into the fold, which many responsible chiefs want to do.

Despite defending police in courtrooms and in the public sphere for decades, Rains says law enforcement has trouble hiring because of their reputation for bias and misconduct, and can’t recruit enough good people. Scandals like Antioch “drag the whole profession down.”

Example: The home page for Antioch

PD police

is actually a job offer, which offers a $30,000 signing bonus.

Departments, especially in California, are under tremendous pressure to reform and rebuild trust with communities fed up with biased policing. Alison Berry Wilkinson, an attorney who often represents officers in disciplinary hearings, said the CLEAR Act is simply a continuation of a trend she already sees that departments can no longer tolerate bias.

Like it

Bill SB Senate

2, another reform measure that allows California for the first time to decertify officers for gross misconduct so they cannot wear a badge anywhere in the state, it is the codification of the public will.

“It’s a clear statement of what’s already going on,” she told me. “Individuals who hold these beliefs, who express hate in the manner of those text messages, have no place in this industry.”

If law enforcement leaders can use the CLEAR Act to raise expectations and perhaps even purge the house of an old and ugly mindset, then it is a law that should be used to its fullest.

Beginning in Antioch.