Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) announces that he has amended AB 1472, which would make false reports to police, including 911 calls, a violation of the Ralph Civil Rights Act when made against a person because of that person’s race or other protected characteristic. This bill would also allow for civil action against persons who make false police reports or claims, regardless of discriminatory motive.
Assemblymember Mark Stone
“Across California and across the country, people are again demanding that those of us in elected office deal with the systemic, institutionalized racism inherent in law enforcement and other governmental systems. Black Americans are overpoliced and subject to higher rates of police brutality, use-of-force, harassment, arrest, and incarceration,” said Assemblymember Stone. “This violent oppression is devastating to Black communities and contributes to higher rates of mortality and poverty, among a multitude of other negative outcomes. In addition to Black communities, American Indian/Alaskan native and Latinx communities are also disproportionately affected by policing in America.”
There have been many highly publicized examples of unnecessary or patently false calls to law enforcement that threaten people of color. Examples include Amy Cooper, a white woman in New York who falsely claimed that a Black man was threatening her life after he requested that she follow park rules about leashing her dog, and Jennifer Schulte, a white woman who requested police response to a Black family who was barbecuing at a lake in Oakland.
Such acts weaponize the police, endanger lives, and contribute to the over-policing of Black communities, according to Stone, who contends that fling a false or unnecessary police report motivated by racial bias, whether purposeful or simply reckless, is a discriminatory act.
AB 1472 amends the Ralph Civil Rights Act to specify that “intimidation by threat of violence” will include claims or reports made to law enforcement “that falsely alleges that another person has engaged in unlawful activity, or an activity that requires law enforcement intervention, knowing that the claim or report is false, or with reckless disregard to for the truth or falsity of the claim or report.”
AB 1472 will specify that making a false report to the police, knowing that it is false or with reckless disregard to its truth or falsity, constitutes an “intimidation by threat of violence” under the Ralph Act.
Further, AB 1472 will specify that a police communication made “knowing that the claim or report is false, or with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the claim or report” is not privileged publications. This would prevent a person who makes a report in violation of the Ralph Act from raising “privileged communication” as a defense, and it would also allow for civil actions on other grounds even if the false report is not motivated by bias against a protected characteristic.
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This bill is currently in the Senate and is waiting in Senate Rules for referral. Bills can be monitored at https://legiscan.com/CA/