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Public commenters urge state fines, stronger monitoring of high‑risk officers and better record compliance
Summary
During public comment, community speakers urged POST to push for enforceable penalties on agencies that withhold records, stronger monitoring for high‑risk officers and systems to detect officer distress to prevent suicides.
At the beginning of the Sept. 10 meeting, the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training heard public comments urging statutory changes and stronger oversight of law enforcement records and high‑risk officers.
Leticia Williamson, a community advocate, told commissioners she was drafting legislation that would impose civil fines on law enforcement agencies that fail to comply with state record‑turnover laws (she cited Senate Bills 1421, 1621 and SB 2 as context). Williamson described a San Diego case in which she said an officer later took his own life and asserted that records related to high‑risk officers were not forwarded to POST in a timely way; she said her proposal would impose daily civil penalties for withheld records and criminal penalties for falsifying or concealing records.
Yousef Miller of the North County Equity and Justice Coalition said POST should consider immediate decertification in cases where officers fail to render lifesaving aid or otherwise engage in apparent gross misconduct. Miller also recounted a local San Diego incident in which he said deputies failed to perform a timely search of a person in water; he urged POST to scrutinize such decisions.
Williamson also urged a high‑risk monitoring system under the Department of Justice to identify officers needing intervention and to prevent tragedies.
The commission noted public comment and took no immediate legislative action; such proposals would be a matter for staff and counsel to consider and for commissioners to address in policy or legislative‑advocacy forums outside the administrative revocation proceedings.
