CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' – AT 11:21 P.M. ET:  There are many wonderful things about California.  Indeed, I have family there, and have spent much happy time in the golden state.  But there are some things, namely the left-wing fringe of the Democratic Party, that are less-than-wonderful.  Their newest proposal is an example.  From the Sacramento Bee: 

Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a proposal that would restrict the circumstances under which California police officers could use deadly force.

Assembly Bill 931, which would raise the standard for lethal use of force from “reasonable” to “necessary,” passed the Senate Public Safety Committee on an initial vote of 5-1.

It was the first hearing for the controversial measure, which has raised sharp objections from law enforcement groups that contend it would put officers’ lives in danger. Under the bill, deadly force could only be justified if there were no reasonable alternatives.

“We ask officers to run toward danger and sacrifice their safety,” Cory Salzillo of the California State Sheriffs’ Association said. It would be “unfair” to ask them to do so when an after-the-fact analysis might undermine their actions in the field, he added.

Supporters filled the committee room, many of them carrying pictures of friends and family members who had been killed by police. Several lawmakers expressed that the bill was necessary to address a deeper problem of racism in policing.

 “It always blows me away that law enforcement only fear for their life when they are facing black and brown people,” Sen. Steve Bradford, D-Gardena, said.

COMMENT:  That is simply not true.  Most people killed in police shootings are in fact white.  However, that is really not the issue.

The "reasonable man" test is time honored.  Yes, it has been abused on occasion.  No standard is perfect.  And yes, there are bad cops.  That's why we have internal affairs divisions in police departments.  And yes, there are prejudiced juries that exonerate officers who should be convicted.  All these things are true.

But Mr. Salzillo is right.  We ask officers, many of them married, with children, to run toward danger and risk their lives.  If an officer fires his weapon, and that is actually rare, he does so because he reasonably believes he will be killed if he doesn't.  The decision is almost always made in the heat of action.  If you drop "reasonable" and put in "necessary" you are asking for a value judgment that would confound even Solomon. 

Who would you get to patrol the streets?  Who would want that job if a cop could be second-guessed by someone who never travels in anything but a taxi and determines that, while reasonable, the officer's action was not "necessary"?

The answers to the rare but heartbreaking examples of mistaken shootings are much better training, the development of non-lethal tactics, and vastly improved community-police relations.  I might also add that teaching young people, especially in minority communities, to approach police officers with respect, rather than hostility, might help.

June 19, 2018