California Lawmakers Pass A Bill That Would Ban Use of Face Masks By Law Enforcement

Legal Issues

from the you-serve-the-public,-you-mooks dept

It’s probably too much to ask, but I hope California law enforcement agencies will remember who to direct their hate at if this bill becomes law. It’s not the “liberals” running the state. It’s the Trump administration and its mass deportation efforts. ICE and its actions have always been controversial, but it took a group of bigots serving non-consecutive terms to really unleash its inherent ugliness.

What we’ve been seeing since Trump’s return to office has been ICE and anti-brown people sentiment at its worst. ICE raids Home Deport parking lots, neighborhoods, and swap meets, rather than performing targeted arrests of truly dangerous undocumented immigrants. But this insistence on masking officers and hiding outward designations of their originating agency is something specifically tied to Trump’s second administration.

ICE has sowed. California law enforcement agencies are now on the verge of reaping this particular whirlwind, as CBS News reports.

Lawmakers in California passed a bill on Thursday banning most local and federal law enforcement officers from covering their faces during operations, including immigration enforcement.

Senate Bill 627, known as the No Secret Police Act, was introduced by Democratic state Sens. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Jesse Arreguin of Berkeley in June after immigration operations ramped up across the state as part of President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The bill will now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for final approval. 

The bill [PDF] opens up with the legislators’ refusal to allow law enforcement to take advantage of preexisting double-standard:

Existing law makes it a misdemeanor to wear a mask, false whiskers, or any personal disguise, as specified, with the purpose of evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification while committing a public offense, or for concealment, flight, evasion, or escape from arrest or conviction for any public offense.

This bill would make it a crime for a law enforcement officer to wear a facial covering in the performance of their duties, except as specified. The bill would define law enforcement officer as anyone designated by California law as a peace officer who is employed by a city, county, or other local agency, and any officer or agent of a federal law enforcement agency or law enforcement agency of another state, or any person acting on behalf of a federal law enforcement agency or agency of another state. The bill would make a violation of these provisions punishable as an infraction or a misdemeanor, as specified. By creating a new crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

This won’t stop ICE and other federal officers from wearing masks while terrorizing the populace, of course. But it will at least prevent local law enforcement from blending in with Trump’s masked goon squads, which might discourage them from pitching in with questionable “round up all the brown people” raids performed by ICE and its federal partners.

Added to the bill are a lot of official legislative declarations — ones that point out the numerous problems created by officers who choose to disguise themselves when performing their public duties.

(a)[T]he routine use of facial coverings by law enforcement officers has significant implications for public perception, officer-community interactions, and accountability.

(b) Whether intentional intended or not, members of the public may experience fear or intimidation when approached by officers whose faces are obscured. This perception can heighten defensive behaviors and unnecessarily escalate situations.

(c) Facial coverings limit the visibility of facial expressions, which are essential components of nonverbal communication. In high-stress or emotionally charged interactions, the inability to read an officer’s expression may lead to misinterpretation of tone or intent, increasing the risk of conflict escalation.

(d) The visibility of an officer’s face is vital for promoting transparency, facilitating communication, and building trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.

(e) When officers are not readily identifiable, it increases the risk of impersonation by unauthorized individuals, which further undermines public trust, endangers public safety, and hinders legitimate law enforcement operations.

This exposes the lie that is used most frequently by law enforcement: that masking up makes officers “safer.” It doesn’t. It creates a ton of negative side effects, many of which endanger people on both sides of the law enforcement equation. What it definitely does not do is make officers “safer.”

On top of that, there’s the damage done to the public’s relationship with law enforcement, which has never been great. Destroying trust only takes a few self-serving actions by cops who’d rather have their power completely decoupled from any responsibility. Rebuilding this trust takes maximum effort and years of work — something almost no law enforcement agency (federal or local) is willing to do. So, the baseline is trust that has likely been irreparably damaged. And now, law enforcement seems to think the best way to do cop business is by destroying what little trust remains by dressing up like cartel death squads while enforcing civil laws pertaining to citizenship.

Cops will no doubt complain about this new mandate if it’s codified. Fuck them. They had all the time in the world to repair their relationship with the public. And if they’ve chosen to be more like ICE in its current iteration, they absolutely need to have this dubious privilege taken out of their hands.

Filed Under: accountability, california, dhs, face masks, ice, law enforcement, mass deportations, scott wiener