California Attorney General announces agreement to keep San Francisco police reforms on track
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco police and city officials announced an agreement Monday to have state prosecutors independently review 272 police reforms recommended by federal justice officials.
This is a new agreement that will help improve officer use-of-force policies, improve racial bias training and enhance community policies, transparency and accountability efforts. "We made a promise to our residents and to our communities that we were going to transform our police department and partnering with Attorney General Xavier Becerra will allow us to follow through on that pledge," said interim San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell.
Becerra did not say how much the agreement will cost his department. Rather, he said he's not going to wait for state legislators to provide the money but will find it.
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The federal recommendations were made following several officer-involved shootings in San Francisco in 2015 that led to the resignation of police Chief Greg Suhr.
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The state was asked to step in after the United States Department of Justice, under Jeff Sessions, decided to stop collaborating with the San Francisco Police Department on these reforms. That department no longer provides community-oriented policing assistance to local law enforcement agencies. In the past few years, Washington had worked with the SFPD on these reforms. Now, it will be up to the state to make sure that the recommendations are implemented.
The 272 recommendations were given to the police department in 2016 following a number of incidents of police brutality. To date, more than half of the reforms have been implemented or are being worked on.
Lyanne Melendez will have the full story coming up on ABC7 News at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Follow her on Twitter for updates.
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Bay City News contributed to this story.
