Police reforms in Berkeley aim to reduce unnecessary interactions between officers, people of color

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(BERKELEY, Calif.) A new review of police responses in Berkeley has just been released by the city auditor, KRON4 reports.

Among the findings included in the report is data that indicates that people of color are pulled over by police in Berkeley at a significantly higher rate compared to other residents in the city.

Berkeley now hopes that recently enacted police reforms will reduce any unnecessary interactions between people of color and the police.

Reforms in Berkeley include the elimination of stops for low-level offenses that do not pose any threat to public safety, such as stopping people for expired tags or for not wearing a seatbelt, as well as requiring that written consent to perform searches.

These are just some of the measures that were passed in Berkeley by the city council last summer and have now gone into effect.

“I think our department began to implement the policy several months ago,” said Mayor Jesse Arreguin. “We are getting more information about how police are using force. it has resulted in less force used by our police.”

The overall goal of the reforms is to reduce and limit the potential use of force during stops for non-violent offenses.

“And required greater reporting and limits around the types of force that police can use in a variety of different incidents,” Arreguin said.

Police reform has also been enacted at the state level with Senate Bill 2, titled the police officers certification and civil rights bill, which was recently passed.

Senator Scott Wiener was one of the principal coauthors of the bill.

“Senate Bill 2 does two primary things. First, it makes sure that bad cops can be decertified and are no longer able to work as police officers,” Wiener said.

“Right now may have had real problems, can often just go to another police department. The second thing it does is it eliminates qualified immunity for police officers in California, which is a defense that officers can use when they have violated someone’s constitutional rights by using excessive force,” he added.

Mayor Arreguin voiced his opinion that statewide police reforms are the next logical steps.

“While it is important for local communities to take steps, we do need state intervention to make sure this is the policy statewide,” he said. “Standards around use-of-force because things do sometimes escalate.”

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