As many as 3,500 California police officers could be decertified or suspended every year under a new state law that cracks down on misconduct.
That number comes from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the state agency in charge of enforcing SB-2. The law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, gives POST power to strip officers of their certification for serious misconduct, such as excessive force, intimidating witnesses, or joining a law enforcement gang.
After decertification, an individual is never allowed to work as a police officer in California again.
The estimate suggests that almost 4% of California’s 90,000 cops will be found responsible for misconduct that rises to the level of decertification each year. One of the POST advisory board’s members, Lizzie Buchen, told the San Francisco Chronicle that she finds the figure “pretty staggering.”
“If we have that many officers who have committed these very serious harms against the public, that’s really serious,” she said.
The commission submitted its estimate in a request for an additional $6 million in funding to deal with the massive caseload.
In the first five months of 2023, POST received more than 62,000 serious misconduct reports and suspended or revoked the certifications of 44 officers, including four from the LASD and one from the LAPD.
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