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Law enforcement organizations are unlikely to compromise with advocates of a proposal this session to restrict the circumstances under which police officers could use deadly force.
Their staunch opposition significantly diminishes the prospects for Assembly Bill 931, which would increase the state standard for lethal use of force from "reasonable" to "necessary," to become law. Though the measure on Tuesday passed its first policy committee, it faces a lengthy and complicated path ahead in a Legislature historically hesitant to cross law enforcement.
At the Senate Public Safety Committee hearing, representatives for rank-and-file police and their management said their objections to the proposed change on use of force could not be resolved by an offer to provide funding to retrain officers.
"We agree that more training can result in better outcomes, but there is a fundamental disagreement about raising the standard above what the Supreme Court has said," Jonathan Feldman, a lobbyist for the California Police Chiefs Association, told The Bee.