Community Forum On Police Use Of Force

The Santa Cruz County Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California presents a community forum on the timely and urgent issue of the use of force by police. The event is free and open to the public.

The speakers will be four prominent experts on the topic: Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris, whose work emphasizes police misconduct excessive force cases, including Rodney King and Oscar Grant’s family; Santa Cruz Public Defender and recent candidate for Superior Court Judge, Zach Schwarzbach; Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills; and Pacific Grove Police Chief Amy Christey. Fred Smith, author of “Blue Lights in Your Mirror,” will moderate.

The use of often-deadly force by police has been an increasingly visible and urgent issue in recent years, with the deaths of Laquan McDonald, Stephon Clark, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and many others. The forum will center on AB 931, the bill by California Assembly member Shirley Weber that was introduced this past legislative session and will be taken up again next year. Among other things, AB 931 would set a higher standard for law enforcement officers to use lethal force against civilians, requiring that the use of lethal force be necessary and not merely reasonable. The panelists promise to explore all sides of this important issue.