Senate Standing Committee on Public Safety

Good morning. I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Public safety for Thursday, September 11, 2025. We do have a quorum, so I'd like to begin with the establishment of a quorum. If the Secretary can please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Quorum is present. Thank you very much. This is a hearing under Senate Rule 2910, Subsection D, to take up two bills. File Item 1, SB627, by Senator Wiener, and File Item 2, SB805, by Senator Perez. So we'll begin first with file item 1, SB627, and turn the forward to Senator Wiener to present if there are any witnesses. If you can, please join us here at the table. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Mr. Chair and colleagues. I'm here today to present Senate Bill 627, the no secret Police Act. I want to thank the Chair and also Senator Perez, Senator Wahab for their partnership on this effort as joint authors, and Senators Caballero and Gonzalez for their partnership as co authors. So thank you.

SB 627 is a Latino caucus and AAPI caucus priority bill, and it is an urgent step to combat the creeping fascism confronting California and this entire country.

SB627 prohibits local and federal law enforcement from covering their faces while conducting operations in the State of California with various exemptions around medical and health masking, certain undercover operations, SWAT team, and so forth.

Colleagues, there's been a fair amount of misinformation being spread about this bill right now, and I want to clear up some facts about what this bill does and what it doesn't do.

SB627 does not apply to law enforcement officers wearing the following types of facial coverings, clear face shields, a motorcycle helmet while on motorcycle duty, eyewear to protect against eye injury, medical and surgical masking, a breathing apparatus necessary to protect against toxins, masks to protect against inclement weather, masks for underwater operations, and does not apply to law enforcement engaged in undercover operations, SWAT team and other areas.

I hate to have to even list out these exemptions. They're crystal clear in the bill. But yet we hear misinformation about people not being able to wear motorcycle helmets, and so on and so forth.

SB627 also requires law enforcement agencies as of July 1st of next year to maintain and post a written policy regarding the use of facial coverings. SB 627 creates two types of penalties for violation one is a wobbler for violating the law.

However, if an officer works for an agency that has a compliant policy in place, then the officer is not subject to criminal liability. This will create a strong incentive for law enforcement agencies to have good facial covering policies.

In addition, SB67 creates a civil penalty for individuals who are found to have committed a tort, such as battery, assault, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, malicious prosecution while covering their faces and willfully and knowingly violating the law. Willfully and knowingly violating the law.

If an officer commits a tort while covering their face and willfully or unknowingly violating the law, then they're liable and they are not able to raise immunities. There's been a lot of talk about immunities. Immunities in this bill don't and should not apply to an intentional violation of the law. And that's what this is about.

And we worked with the judiciary committees in both houses to craft that provision. You know, I want to just also talk about the federalism issues here because there has also been misinformation saying that this bill only applies to local law enforcement and does not apply to federal law enforcement.

Well, first of all, the bill says that it applies to federal law enforcement. And second, it is absolutely defensible in court. And Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of UC Berkeley School of Law, one of the most respected constitutional law scholars in the country, publish an op ed in the SAC B describing why the bill is defensible.

And I'll read a quote from his op ed quote. While on the job, federal employees must stop at red lights and cannot violate speeding laws unless doing so would interfere with their jobs. Federal law enforcement officer who uses excessive force can be sued under state law for battery.

So it's not the case that federal employees are blanket exempt from all state laws here. We know that because this applies not just to federal but also to local law enforcement. In addition, Ayes has been crystal clear that wearing these masks is not necessary for ICE's operations.

It's a personal choice that they allow individual Ayes agents to make. Let's talk about those personal choices.

We are seeing a situation where Ayes agents or perhaps bounty hunters or vigilantes or who knows, who are running around in our communities with effectively ski masks as if they were robbing a liquor store, grabbing people, throwing them into unmarked vehicles and taking them, we don't even know where, to a gulag somewhere, to some sort of holding facility and tearing them apart from their families.

And if you try to just imagine that you're walking down the street and someone in a ski mask comes up to you with not even in a uniform, and says, you're under arrest. Come with me. What kind of country is that where we would ever allow that to happen? And that is.

It is harming trust in law enforcement. It's causing unbelievable confusion. It's making it harder for local law enforcement to know what's going on. And all it does is risk escalation. Cause it's totally normal for someone to say, I'm not going with you. I don't know who the heck you are.

So it is so deeply harmful, and we have to stop it. This bill applies to local law enforcement as well. And I understand that there are folks in local law enforcement who don't like that. I've had a long relationship with my own local Police Department in San Francisco.

I'm a former deputy city attorney and among other things, defend the police officers who were being sued. I work with our Police Department all the time. This is not about attacking our local police. Local police, like Ayes agents, should not be wearing ski masks. They shouldn't.

And to not be covered by this bill, that's what you have to do. Just don't wear a ski mask. And we don't see local law enforcement doing this now. But we are eight months into this disastrous Administration.

And I do worry about what the world is going to look like in 6, 12, 18, 24 months as we continue to see these tears at the fabric of society. So, colleagues, this is a good Bill. It is well crafted. We're not trying to change how local law enforcement at all law enforcement operates.

We want law enforcement to be able to operate in the normal way. And what's happening now with people running around with ski masks on, grabbing people, that is not normal. And we must never normalize that as a part of law enforcement in the State of California. I respectfully ask for your aye vote. With me today. Excuse me.

To testify is Christine Soto DeBerry, the Executive Director of Prosecutors Alliance Action, and Hector Pereira, the political manager for the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.

Okay, thank you very much. You would have two minutes to address the Committee, whoever would like to start.

Good morning, Chair, Members of the Committee, thank you for having us here today. Christine Soto deberry. And I'm the Executive Director of Prosecutors Alliance Action, a proud co sponsor of SB627 and spent a decade as Chief of Staff in the San Francisco District Attorney's office.

As the Senator just mentioned, for months we have seen Californians across this state have their basic huge human and civil rights violated, being abducted off of the street by people unknown to them and unidentifiable. That threat, unfortunately, is only growing worse.

As the Supreme Court has just said, these types of roving patrols and the use of a person's race or language spoken are appropriate for making an approach to a citizen in our community. And California has both the right and, as we heard many Members of the Assembly stating this week, the responsibility to act. SB 627 is clear.

It's a common sense safeguard and it is meant to protect both our communities and law enforcement alike. The situations are growing increasingly dangerous and violent. We've seen now the discharging of a weapon against community Members. It is time for us to step in and make clear rules.

SB627 prohibits officers from wearing opaque facial coverings and, as the Senator indicated, transparent face shields. Any of the other appropriate safety equipment that is worn continues to be permissible. The Bill also requires that law enforcement agencies adopt their own policy.

This is meant to allow law enforcement agencies to interpret the many unique situations they encounter within their agency and in their enforcement duties to contemplate what is necessary for their personnel. The enforcement is narrow and reasonable. A criminal penalty only applies if an agency refuses to adopt a policy.

The standard enforcement will be a civil penalty starting at $10,000 under the Baynes act, which is current law in California, the starting fee is $25,000. There's been much discussion that qualified immunity is being eliminated. Immunities in this state are not a blanket. They do not cover unlawful, unreasonable behavior.

And that is what we're talking about with this Bill. There are many sections of our government code, including 820.4, the Bains Act. This body's recent passage of SB2, California Supreme Court decisions that have all interpreted limitations on unreasonable unlawful acts by law enforcement as not qualifying for immunity. This is similar to that.

We have been circumspect in what we are including, in that we have no intention of sweeping in honest behavior of our local law enforcement. They are still entitled to every defense they could raise. In any other circumstance. We have put in the intention of willful and knowing for that purpose.

It's not a reckless standard, it's not a negligence standard. It's much higher than that. Thank you so much.

Yes, Senator. I misspoke before. I said it was a wobbler. It's a wobblette. So my apologies for that. That's a significant distinction.

Good morning, Senators. Good morning, Chair. My name is Hector Pereira. I am the political manager for the Inland Coalition for Immigrant jJstice, and we are proud co sponsors to SB627. I'm here today to talk about the original purpose of this bill.

Our organization manages the rapid response hotline for both San Bernardino in Riverside County, in which we receive thousands and thousands of calls about immigration enforcement. But one of the most alarming trends we're seeing are folks calling in to report crime.

We have battered wives, victims of domestic violence, calling into our hotline to report what has happened to them. And our hotline is not designed to react or to respond to those kind of incidents.

And what is happening in our communities has already will continue result in less people reporting crimes because they're scared that if they call their local Police Department, they will come and Deport them. What our community is seeing right now, it is hard to distinguish between our law enforcement agencies.

And they are just associating all of the behavior as all the same. And that is incredibly dangerous to our local law enforcement who have for decades put in efforts to regain the trust in their communities.

And so it is through masking that these Ayes agents have been emboldened to act with complete impunity as they violate the civil rights and as they tear families apart.

In our communities, the City of San Bernardino last month, we saw Ayes agents masked racially profile the family, pulled them over, broke their windows, and when the family drove off, out of reasonable fear, they shot at their vehicle three times without any regard for whether the fact that they may injure someone or kill someone.

In Ventura County, we saw a mass raid of Ayes agents resulting in a death. In the City of Monrovia, we saw masked Ayes agents chase a day labor onto the freeway, resulting in his death. And so that is the real fear that our communities are experiencing right now.

SB627 is about providing life saving protections to the millions of immigrants that are in this state, that are under daily attack from this regime, and not just the undocumented immigrants. This earlier decision from the Supreme Court gave the okay to racial profiling. So it's not just undocumented immigrants.

It is the over 15 million Latinos in this state that are now prime targets for this authoritarian regime. And so SB627, we've made reasonable amendments. We've done all the efforts possible to make the best Bill we possibly can. We believe we're on good legal standing. And I respectfully urge for your a vote.

Me, myself, but also the millions of immigrants in this country that are living in daily fear.

Thank you very thank you so very much will now take me to testimony in support of Senate Bill 627. If you'd like to express your support for the Bill, please come to the microphone. State your name, organization and position on the bill.

Monaco Madrid, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA Strong support.

Good morning. Glenn Bacus, for Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Drug Policy aAliance in support. I was asked to also mention that maldef, the Mexican American Legal and Education. Fund, is a co sponsor. Also supported by Western center on Law. And Poverty and Friends Committee on Legislation. Thank you.

Good morning. Renee Bayardo, representing SEIU California in support.

Good morning. Lizzie Cuzona, here on behalf of Mayor Karen Bass and the City of Los Angeles, the City of Goleta, City of West Hollywood, and the California Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Good morning. Eric Paredes with the California Faculty Association and strong support and we are a proud co sponsor. Thank you.

Alicia Benavidez, on behalf of ACLU California Action.

Thank you so very much. Is there anyone else wishing to express support for Senate Bill 627? Seeing what no one else will now take, up to two principal witnesses who wish to express opposition to SB627. And you each have two minutes to address the Committee. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Jonathan Feldman on behalf of the California Police Chiefs Association in regretful but adamant opposition to Senate Bill 627, which not only restricts the wearing of face masks or facial coverings, but helmets, headgear, tactical masks, and, quote, any other item that conceals or obscures the facial identity of an individual, i.e. sunglasses.

The police chiefs understand the gravity of the situation, and as I've said before to this committee, they're as much a part of their communities as they are protectors of them. But the reality is SB 627 does not address the concerns it seeks to address and will only create conflict and potential harm for your local peace officers.

I want to state on the record that I've personally met with Senator Wiener's staff and spoken to the Senator directly about the bill, as has my colleague from PORAC. I have shared specific feedback, including that many of our concerns would be largely resolved by the inclusion of language that we negotiated in good faith into Senate Bill 805.

But that language was unfortunately clearly rejected by the author in favor of the current exemptions in Senate Bill 627 that are either too vague or woefully inadequate. Any claim that the exemptions in 627 are sufficient is misinformed and misleading.

For example, terms like active undercover and tactical operations are undefined and likely exclude training scenarios and any unplanned actions. Phrases like applicable laws governing health and safety are vague and shifting and may never be resolved through years of litigation. And limitations such as no other reasonable alternative open the door for second guessing split second decisions.

Omitted from these exemptions are those for general protective equipment not governed by law and exigent circumstances. As for the criminal penalties in the bill, only motorcycle helmets are allowed, no others, and only when utilizing the motorcycle, which goes against safety training.

The officers do not remove their helmets when they get off their bikes. They keep them in case they're in traffic safety danger. This presents a direct and real safety risk to the officers who will be forced to choose between their safety, criminal penalties, or loss of immunity.

And while agencies may be able to absolve themselves of these criminal penalties through adopting these inadequate policies, no policy may be adopted after July 1, 2026, meaning that any new agencies that are created beyond that date cannot avail themselves of these exemptions.

Lastly, the erosion of the civil immunity protections for the officers is an absolute gut punch and the reason we are so vehemently opposed. So my question to the committee is this. Should this flawed bill become law, how are we going to fix these issues and do something that is actually meaningful to protect the public? I urge a no vote.

Good morning, Senators. My name is David Mastagni. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in opposition to this bill on behalf of PORAC. With all due respect to my law school dean, Mr. Chemerinsky, this bill will not apply to federal officers. Yet the severability clause means that its restrictions and the legal jeopardy will fall solely on California officers who don't enforce immigration law.

Since 1890, the Supreme Court has held that under the Supremacy Clause, federal agents are protected from state criminal prosecution if acting within the broad contours of official duties. Federal officers are immune from state penalties, including the civil sanctions in this bill.

Although written as a generally applicable law, it cannot be applied to federal officers if it interferes with federal operations. States do not have authority to second guess the efficacy of federal policies including masking. Federal agencies authorize masks to protect officers' identities and safety.

Banning facial coverings with this conflicts with this federal policy and will trigger what's called conflict preemption because officers cannot comply with both sets of rules without compromising their safety and mission effectiveness. Moreover, in Arizona vs United States in 2012, the US Supreme Court struck down state laws that intruded on federal immigration enforcement.

This same field preemption applies to this bill. I want to talk about the knowing and willful. A violation of under the bill means intentionally wearing a mask means intentionally engaging in the act, not intentionally breaking the law. This general intent standard exposes officers to lawsuits for assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution with $10,000 damages even when there's no actual harm.

The bill's notwithstanding any other law clause overrides basic protections like indemnification under Government Code 825. This exposes officers to personal liability for good faith mistakes about whether an exception applies. This bill removes critical immunities that protect officers when making good faith arrests, relying on probable cause, or exercising lawful discretion.

The Legislature has consistently refused to weaken these protections because they're essential to public safety. If this bill passes, it sends a clear message that officer immunities are now on the table. It will become the biggest impediment to recruitment and retention in the state. We respectfully urge a no vote.

Thank you very much. We'll now take me too testimony in opposition to Senate Bill 627. If anyone wishes to express their opposition, please state your name, organization, and position on the bill.

Chair and Members. Cory Salzillo on behalf of the California State Sheriffs Association, locally elected sheriffs across the state. We're in opposition to this bill. Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members. Randy Perry on behalf of PORAC in strong opposition.

Hi. Dillon Lesovsky with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, and the Riverside County Sheriff's Department in opposition.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Matthew Siverling on behalf of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the California Peace Officers Association. Also been asked to continue communicate the opposition for the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the Sheriffs Employee Benefit Association of San Bernardino. All in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Ryan Sherman with the Riverside Sheriffs Association, California Narcotic Officers Association in opposition. Also in opposition on behalf of the California Reserve Peace Officers Association, Placer County Deputy Sheriffs Association, and Police Officer Associations of Arcadia, Burbank, Brea, Corona, Culver City, Fullerton, Murrieta, Newport Beach, Nevada, Palos Verdes, Pomona, and Riverside. All in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to express opposition to SB 627? Seeing no one else. I'll bring it back to the committee for questions and comments. Who would like to begin the discussion? Senator Caballero. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Appreciate the discussion here today. Senator, can you talk a little bit about the amendments that have been proposed and some of the discussions that may have occurred around the amendments that were discussed?

Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate. I called Mr. Feldman and also Mr. Perry, like I think the day before I introduced the bill to give a heads up, make clear we have open door. And we, you know, and we've had conversations. We were told early on that PORAC was not had decided not to engage, and which is fine. No one has an obligation to engage. We've had more conversations with the chiefs.

We removed a particular piece of the bill that, I don't want to speak for them, but it seemed to me was one of the biggest bones of contention, which was requiring if an agency went into another jurisdiction with masking, they had to notify them in advance. That caused a lot of concern.

We removed that from the bill entirely. We added new exemptions to the bill. We made various refinements to the bill. We've always been open to making those refinements. I think what Mr. Feldman was referring to is that Senator Pérez and her bill they had worked out, which is a different bill.

I mean, they're companion bills, but different bill with different issues because there's also existing law around identifying yourself as an officer, which is what 805 deals with. They worked out various amendments and they wanted us to sort of, to sort of transfer those amendments over to our bill. And we did not think that that made sense.

So I also, I do just want to say one thing. Mr. Feldman indicated that agencies are prohibited from adopting any policies after July 1, 2026, such as new agencies. It's not what the bill says. The bill says that that's your deadline. You know, you have the six months to do it. Doesn't mean that they can't change it or adopt policies after. I just want to make that really clear. That's not a fair reading of the bill at all.

Thank you. I appreciate that. So, Mr. Feldman, here's the challenge that I have at this particular point in time is that I think that we do a really good job in California of I think that police agencies do a really good job in California of protecting the public. And one of the things that I think we've all worked on is having every member of the community feel like going to a police officer is an important thing if you've been a victim of a crime or if you're scared.

And that's really important. The number of times that I've been on the freeway system and somebody's following me, I don't like the look of it, and I pull into a CHP office somewhere on the highway. It's a place to go when you want to feel safe. That changed this year.

And it changed enough so that I had to call people and tell them, they're family members. If I disappear, look for me, because I'm not leaving voluntarily. I'm not going to hide. I'm not going anywhere. And that is because of the lack of protocol of individuals.

I don't think they were peace officers myself because they didn't know how to handle difficult situations. And when the people around them became aggressive, they left. They turned and left. That's not what trained officers do if they're rightfully in the place where they're supposed to maintain the law.

And so for me as a fifth generation US citizen, fourth generation US citizen, to have those thoughts because of the color of my skin, where I may hang out, where I may be eating, where I go to get my car washed, it's frightening. And so the challenge is, and I really appreciate the analysis, the constitutional analysis. But frankly, things have been upended not only kind of on the streets, but also in the courts.

And I am very worried about people showing up that I can't identify, that do illegal things and I can't identify and that they do it under color of law. So the challenge, I guess I have is, if you could, what's the biggest concern? Police officers never wore full ski masks. I mean, they never did.

And so what's the biggest concern that you have? And maybe it's something that we can resolve, we can settle down the road. But I, this one is really personal to me and it's the reason I'm a co-author. But I also, I'm very sensitive to the issues that you raise. We want to make sure that they can use face coverings for health and safety issues.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about doing an operation where they don't have to show a badge, they don't have to identify themselves. They can be covered. And if they're doing things legally, then they shouldn't have to worry about their safety. So I'm not sure if I asked a question in there, but I think so.

I appreciate just hearing the perspective. And I know, I mean, most of the committee is a co-author. So I understand, as I said at the beginning, the gravity of the situation. And the police chiefs do too. I mean, they have immigrant friends in their community. They are put right in the middle of this as well, dealing with it. And it is incredibly difficult.

It's one of the reasons that the police chiefs historically have worked with the Legislature on sanctuary state policies and T visa and U visa programs and Senator Perez's Bill 805. Because we do want to help dispel those concerns and show, you know, our values, the California law enforcement values.

So the concerns with the bill, the exemptions are limiting and it's very practical. I mean, the stuff that I listed out about you can't wear a helmet when you get off the bike that's in the bill. The fact that it applies to helmets, headgear, tactical weapons, or tactical headgear, not just face masks. I mean, all of that is personal protective equipment that is limited in this bill to an extent that is concerning to us.

The immunity provision is incredibly concerning to us because the standard that they create, and I know they talk about knowing and willful being a higher standard. It's a general intent standard. It's low. It's just that they took the actions. That's we feel an unfair and unreasonable shot at some of the core protections that law enforcement needs.

And then, Senator, to the date I'll show you in the bill, it actually does say no later than July 1, 2026. So that means any policy after that is ineligible for the protections. Some of these are kind of more technical issues that probably need to be clarified through definitions or, you know, verbiage changes.

The immunity provision, which was, as the Senator noted, he did take out a logistical piece of the bill that was very concerning to us, but then put in the immunity provision right after it. So it's trading one bad provision for the next that's actually even more concerning to us.

So again, understanding where we are and the situation that we're in and knowing that this bill is going to pass this committee and pass the Legislature and end up on the governor's desk, I don't know what happens at that point. But we're going to have two options. We're going to have to come back here and fix this together next year.

And if it doesn't get signed, we're going to have to come back and find some meaningful ways to actually address this together. I do think, as we worked with Senator Pérez on her bill, that California law enforcement and the Legislature working together probably sends the strongest message about our unity in the face of the concerns that we all share.

So I very much appreciate just hearing from you, your personal perspective. I've heard it from a lot of Members and I understand it very, very well. Unfortunately, like I said from the beginning, our concerns are very practical in the language of the bill and things that we're going to have to fix at some point.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a few clarifying points just to respond to some of the things you raised, Mr. Feldman. And I appreciate your testimony, but just, I have to just clarify. Section 729-728-9A says by July 1, 2026 law enforcement shall maintain and publicly post a policy. So it means that they have to adopt a compliant policy. Doesn't mean that any prior policy is not operative. So Senator Wiener.

Yeah, I think he's referring to F. Right here, the criminal penalty shall not apply. And you know, I think when I read it doesn't say you can't ever adopt or change afterwards. And I'm happy to do a letter to the journal to clarify that. This is, it's about the deadline to do it. It's not about freezing it in amber. So I'm happy to do a letter of the journal on that. Yeah, I have no, I have no issue if there's any ambiguity around that.

And then in section 3185.5 subsection D, this says a motorcycle helmet may be worn by an officer utilizing a motorcycle or the vehicle that requires a helmet for safe operations while in performance of their duties. So I don't read that, I don't read that to mean that when they get off the motorcycle and they are wearing a helmet that they're in violation of the policy. I think it comes down to the question of what does performance of their duties mean.

And if they need to wear their helmet and it's specified in their policy that they can wear a helmet even when they're not wearing them, not on the motorcycle because they need to do it for traffic safety purposes, I would argue that's consistent with the definition of performance of their duties. Yes.

Respectfully, sir, it does say utilizing a motorcycle. So I read that to mean that they have to be utilizing the motorcycle. Yes, it does then qualify in the performance of their duties. But it says a motorcycle helmet when worn by an officer utilizing a motorcycle.

That is how we read it to mean that as soon as you get off the bike, you got to take the helmet off. Again, probably something that is more technical that we clarify. But those are the type of concerns we see throughout the bill that give us concern.

Senator Wiener.

And what, I will... Listen, we're... The amendment, the requests for amendments that were made were, I think, much more fundamental to the bill. I always in every bill I do when people come forward and say, hey, this language, I think it might be a little vague here and we can talk about that.

That's my practice. I don't, I don't think when I read that that it's like if you step off the motorcycle... Even put, even assuming a motorcycle helmet would qualify, because motorcycle helmets, other than like the Evel Knievel kind of situations have a clear mask and they often lift it up. Same with a riot shield. If it's a clear, if you can see the person's face through a transparent, you know, plastic that's not even, you know, I think that's not even covered by the bill. We put that in there out of an abundance of caution.

And if they're wearing one of those Evel Knievel things, I would probably not want CHP to be or police officer to be wearing that kind of covering. But we are always open if someone, and we're happy to sit down about like truly those ambiguities, whether it's a letter to the journal or follow up legislation. And we're always happy to have that conversation.

Okay, thank you. Any other Members wishing to ask any questions or comments? Vice Chair Seyarto.

Thank you very much. And thank you both sides for your perspectives on this issue. And it's a really important issue. And one of the things I'm seeing is problematic is that we are emptying the quiver at what we think is directed at the ICE and the federal government.

And instead we're hitting our local agencies. And the federal government, I think will be eventually, when we get done spending our taxpayer money on it, they're going to be right that, yeah, we have no authority over their operations and their, the rules and regs that they have in their thing.

And one of the reasons I say that is, you know, having come from a city that has a local police agency and then having CHP right down the street from us in the neighboring city and also having the sheriffs, which are more of the county agency, the local agency cannot create rules that tell them how to do their operations.

CHP has theirs. They're a state agency. Local agencies can't make rules for the state agency. It goes the other way. The state can make rules that apply to the local agency. That's what we do up here. But it doesn't go that way. And that's what you're asking.

That's what this effort is trying to do, is it's trying to make a state rule that we're going to apply to the federal agency. That is actually, that's not how it works. And so I see that as a futile waste of our taxpayer dollars. Some comments have been made. Increasing fascism.

That's one, I guess you could call it one perspective. But a lot of people in this state too see it as the real problem is we have creeping public safety risks that we have done nothing about for the last few years. And the subject of immigration is one of those.

The federal government in the last administration let the pendulum swing to an absurd level. And now we're dealing with an administration who, whether they're right or wrong, has taken a directive they think or not from the public that says, hey, we want to get a handle on this. And now they're doing what they are doing now.

And so you may, the author here may think that this is a disastrous federal administration, but you also come from a state where your opinion is over represented in every facet of our administration. And a lot of people in California think California's administration has been disastrous. And a lot of them are reacting by moving out.

And policies like this are one of them. I don't think any one of you, none of the people on this committee have been in law enforcement out on the streets. And I don't mean law enforcement in a courtroom. I mean out on the streets in cities that are a lot of time overrun by dangerous people. And I'm not talking about immigrants. I'm talking about, or not illegal immigrants.

I'm talking about just dangerous people in general. And some of the things that they have to go through to protect themselves, but also to protect the public. One instance that I can tell you in my district, that was personal to me, was a lot of times if our officers are confronted with a situation, it would probably be better if they didn't get identified immediately because then the other person, the bad person, gets the jump on them.

And that jump on them means they're dead. And that's what happened to one of the officers in Riverside County that lived in the city I live in. He pulled up, there's a domestic violence situation. He's immediately identified as a cop. He gets shot dead before he can even say, hey, dude, what are you doing.

We also have situations where we have different types of crime overrunning communities. And in order to get at the core of those crimes, police agencies, local police agencies have to use their personnel to go out and form task force. And some of those task force, I can tell you, SWAT teams, that's one of them.

Gang units, drug enforcement units, stolen vehicle units. And because they're such a small unit, their folks do need to keep their identities secret. You know why? Because the bad guys aren't just a single bad guy out there stealing cars or stealing guns or selling drugs.

The bad guys out there are usually part of a bigger, bigger group of bad guys. And if they are identified, they don't go after them. They go after their families. I watched this firsthand. Firsthand. And it wasn't, I'm sorry, it wasn't a law enforcement officer. But this is how they, this is how they think. We're not going to go after that person because then his friends will come after us.

But what we will do is we're going to go burn his house down. Or burn down the house of his cousin with his cousin and their baby inside. We're going to go take the gal, the guy who shorted us on the drug deal, and we're going to tie up his girlfriend's hands and her feet, and then burn her in an alley and make him watch.

That's the kind of mentality that they have to deal with out there in the street. We are taking the tools away from them to be able to do that all because we don't want people who have violated the law to get caught. It's part of the de-incarceration movement. I don't care what it is.

What I see is a total lack of understanding by a lot of people of what's out there and what they have to deal with. And what they have to deal with is just like I have to deal with it too sometimes. When I was, when I was in the service, when I was part of the fire department. We'd be in situations where I needed the police, but they had to approach the... What I would get is the undercover guys because they could meld.

They could, they could arrive on scene quietly, get into where they needed to be, and then deploy without being identified until they say, we're the police, you guys back up. And we had to do that quietly with our radios. We had a signal that we have code that we would tell them that means we're in trouble.

We're being surrounded by one gang that wants us to save guy and another gang that wants to let him die. And if we know we're going to lose. And so they have to keep their identities quiet until they can get into a position to do something about it. And that's when they identify themselves and are able to control the situation before more people get shot, more people get hurt. And sometimes those are us.

So you can't make laws that address all the situations that go on, especially in the world of policing and public safety. And one other thing, when you're talking about scared people, you know, they're scared looking at their, you know, how they appear. I've had to teach many, many classes when I was in public education doing the public ed for our fire department.

I had to start from my uniform that's completely identifiable as a firefighter, and then I had to show the kids what it looks like when we were completely dressed with our breathing apparatus on, making that hideous noise. Because what we were finding, where kids were hiding from us, they'd hide. They were scared to death.

And that's part, you know, we can't help that. We'd have to go in and find them. We figured out they crawl under beds, they hide in closets, and if a kid was inside, that's what we'd do. Our search would be go right to the room, go right to the bed, get into the closet, find them.

And you know what? They were scared to death when we found them. They didn't say, oh, good, a firefighter. No they thought some freaking monster from outer space was coming to get them and finish the job that this house fire was about to do. They didn't identify us. They couldn't identify us. They were scared.

But you know what? We picked them up anyway, kicking and screaming, handed them out the window, took them out the door, whatever we needed to do to get them outside. And that's why sometimes you don't have your uniform on that helps identify exactly who you are to everybody because you're never going to achieve that.

This bill is a reaction to something. And whenever we have a reaction to something, usually that means bad policy is written. And this bill has bad policy written all over it. Because we keep talking about, oh, we're going to, oh, we'll fix that, oh, we're going to talk about, oh, we'll clarify that.

We have a two year session. You want to keep working on this, keep working on it. But this nonsense of bringing it to Public Safety when our last Public Safety meeting was supposed to be a month ago and then cramming it in at the last minute is not the way to do good policy.

And it's certainly not good for public safety, which is what this department is supposed to be about. This committee is a Public Safety Committee and we are not promoting public safety with this. What we're doing is fighting against the federal government, just another arrow aimed at them that's missing the mark completely.

So with that, I did have a couple of questions. No, I think they answered most of the questions about some of the immunity issues. And I don't think, unless you can think of more instances where people try to conceal their identity so their families don't get have to suffer the brunt of a more organized gang unit or gang presence that will be able to identify them and go after their families.

That's why in this case, it's bad people. Bad people wear their... You said it yourself, Mr. Author, that people wear masks when they're robbing a liquor store. Is that illegal? Robbing the liquor store is. But is it legal for them to wear a mask on the street? I don't think it is.

Is that a question or a rhetorical question?

What I will say is I do not want to have a society where someone who's arresting you looks like the guy robbing the liquor store. That's the problem. Because the guy robbing the liquor store, robbing the liquor store should go to prison. But the person enforcing the law is someone who's actually supposed to...

When they come, you should be like, oh, good. And when the guy arresting you looks like the guy robbing the liquor store and you have no idea who it is, that is terrifying. And I want to also say this is the Public Safety Committee, and it's about the safety of the public, which is under assault right now as people are being grabbed by people wearing ski masks.

So the difference is...

And it is a crime. That is a crime. Wearing a ski mask when you're robbing, that's an additional crime.

But the... But wearing a ski mask without the robbery is not a crime. People wear them all the times when they're out there doing the rioting and things like that. And so we haven't gotten to that.

If someone's walking down the street wearing a ski mask, that's very different than saying I'm grabbing you and putting you in a car.

So, Senator Seyarto, I do want to give other Members an opportunity to speak, but you have the floor. So...

I just have one more point to make, and that's regarding the ski mask. The reason that robbers wear a ski mask is so they can get away with the illegal act that they're doing. The reason that law enforcement wears some concealing, whatever it is. Whether it's a mask or whatever it is to conceal their identity is for their safety and the safety of their families and the ability not to be recognized.

They are not breaking the law. And also stop the unlawful or reasonable unreasonable acts. What's unreasonable to you may be completely reasonable to the rest of us. And in this state, we don't know what that is because 85 or 75% of representation in this state is being voiced by you and not 40% of the people out there. So that's all. And I didn't ask a question. If you want to respond, you can respond.

Yeah, I... One second. I will give you an opportunity to respond. Senator Seyarto, you've finished? Okay. Senator Wiener.

They are very much violating the law in very profound ways. I'll leave it at that.

Well, first of all, I want to thank Senator Wiener for bringing this forward. I know obviously we've been working on companion legislation related to this issue.

Obviously, this has become a huge topic of concern because of what is happening with federal immigration enforcement officers in our communities, and it has created so much fear and so much harm and so much chaos. You've heard me talk about it before, and we did an adjourn in memory for him.

But Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez was killed just a month ago when running from Ayes agents in the City of Monrovia. He was a Monrovia resident and a day laborer, and he is no longer here. His family no longer has a father because, you know, he was running away in fear.

And this is a man that had no criminal record, no criminal history. And so we see these things happening in our communities.

And, you know, I think for us as state legislators are trying to figure out how to respond when before I got elected to office, I didn't anticipate that I was suddenly going to be in a fight with the Federal Government and we would suddenly be in this middle of constitutional crisis.

And it has certainly thrown, I think, all of us for a loop. With that being said, I do know and I've heard very clearly from our local law enforcement some of their concerns.

And I want to ask particularly about the immunity piece, because what's been shared with me is that the immunity piece that's now been added into the bill is actually reflected in previous legislation that was brought. And I wanted to see is that true? Is that is that the case?

I recognize that the topic of local law enforcement and immunity is a hot one. It is certainly one that I know that's happened up in this Legislature previously and times before I've gotten here, and I know that it's certainly, you know, a topic of concern, particularly for local law enforcement.

So wanted to understand if it's your if you know, whether or not that's been reflected in previous legislation, that's not been successful.

Thank you, Senator Perez. So there are limited.There are limited immunities available to peace officers, and those have been amended over time. I think what you may be referring to is SB2, which eliminated many of the immunities that peace officers previously had. There's also Government Code Section 820.4.

California Supreme Court has also interpreted this limiting when immunity is available, it doesn't eliminate their defenses.

I think much of what has been raised here is a concern that they will do something innocent in an effort to protect their health or safety, and that they will be brought up or sued by an individual, they still have a good faith defense to that and any other defense they choose to bring forward in those moments to explain why they wore the mask and, and that they believed it fell within their policy.

What we're eliminating here is the ability to claim qualified immunity when you one, assault somebody, batter that person, falsely arrest them, falsely imprison them, abuse the process, or maliciously prosecute them, and that you do one of those six things while you're wearing a mask, and that you're wearing that mask willfully and knowingly.

So it is many steps of a process that have to be taken in which the individual would then not receive immunity. Which be clear, immunity means that we as the taxpayers are paying for a person to willfully, knowingly wear a mask and assault us. So that is the circumstance that is prohibited.

Intentional reckless violations of the law that aren't reasonable are not protected by immunity. Currently, if an officer walks out on the street while he's patrolling, as we saw the Ayes agents, and shoots at a car without provocation, without reason, that's not going to be covered by immunity.

So this is similar in that we're saying acts that fall outside of the reasonable enforcement of the law that are currently torts. The list that we have taken, those six that I mentioned to you are already in the Federal Tort Claims Act. We lifted it directly from there.

Those are torts that the federal agencies can be found to violate also as personal liability. Mr. Feldman?

Yeah. I'm going to defer to my legal colleague next to me, but I will say the immunity provisions in SP2 were rejected by the Senate when that was proposed. They did not go through, but I'll let Dave explain.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator. That's a great question. And that's one of our primary concerns for local law enforcement. The good faith defense is nowhere in this Bill. It's actually stripped from the Bill. It's the exact opposite of what was just said. The immunities are very minor, basic immunities. They are what provide the good faith defense.

Things like if you make an arrest and there's a technical defect in a subpoena, you can't then sue the officer for false arrest if they believed in good faith that that subpoena was valid. Just as an example, what this Bill does is it strips away that officer's ability to assert that defense if they intentionally wear a mask.

And even if they believed in good faith that they fell within one of the exceptions, they would lose all of those immunities. And so it's really setting it on its head. Talking about good faith in this way, laws, General laws, mean that you intended to do the act that's prohibited, not that you intended to violate the law.

You've all heard the phrase ignorance of the law is no defense unless it's a specific intent crime, which this is not where you specifically intend to violate the law.

This bill says if you specifically intend to wear a mask, and then it turns out that you, you were not permitted to wear a mask because you didn't fall within one of these exceptions. For example, it says particularized only particularized concerns for safety would fall within the exception. Generalized concerns don't.

So if an officer is exposed to a methamphetamine lab that they didn't expect, and that doesn't fall within these definitions, and it's not regular safety gear, and they just use a scarf or something to cover their face, they would technically be in violation.

If they arrested somebody and it turned out that there was a technical defect in that subpoena or that warrant, they would then lose all of these immunities, which are just baseline like that.

If you're acting in good faith, if you reasonably believe this was the person that you arrested, if you reasonably believed that this was a valid prosecution, it's stripping all those away. And it's saying, now, if you wear a mask and you weren't allowed to, then you're held to strict liability for all of these types of claims.

And then it incentivizes lawyers to sue officers by having a $10,000 statutory damage, even if there's no actual harm to the person. And the frustrating part for my clients is that it is very clear that this law is, is an easy win for the Trump Administration. It's not going to be applied to federal officers.

It's going to land on your local officers who have nothing to do with this fight and already don't enforce immigration bills. This is an easy win for the Federal Government under immunity and under preemption.

Thank you. That's helpful context.

I think one of the challenges, and as Senator Wiener knows, because I've been going through this as well, is kind of navigating these pieces, because when we're drafting something, in order to be mindful of the Supremacy Clause, you know, we do have to apply it to, you know, other enforcement right here in California.

And so in doing that, we have to sweep in local law enforcement. My bill does take into account state and law enforcement. I recognize that state law Enforcement was exempted from your bill, but we have to craft these things in that way. But that does have an impact on our locals.

I represent 19 cities in almost every single one of those 19 cities has very small police departments. I don't represent a very large city like the City of Los Angeles. And so I do understand the concern about, about lawsuits, particularly against some of these smaller agencies and, and individual officers.

It sounds like the good faith defense that's referred to in SB2 is not language that is reflected here in this bill. Is that right, Senator Wiener?

Knowing and willful violation of the law. That's what it requires, a knowing and willful violation. If someone's acting in good faith, they're not going to be liable. And so we just have a disagreement there and a witness can elaborate on that further.

But it sounds like that the concern is over, like how we're crafting that language and that liability, like that very piece. Is that correct, Mr. Feldman?

Yeah. And I think the big concern is that the very beginning part of that clause, notwithstanding any other law, wipes out any other state immunity protections, which includes civil code Section 43.55 that provides civil immunity for any warrant as long as there's good faith.

There's another penal code that gives us civil immunity protections for false arrests made upon probable cause that the officer has at the time.

So where we read a major piece of the concern that we see coming is the fact that this, notwithstanding any other law clause, effectively wipes out all of these existing civil immunity protections that do protect us in these specific ports under state law.

And then I think we really do need to unpack this knowing and willful, because I know they keep getting brought up as, you know, the bar to protect us. We see that as a low bar.

We see that as an officer that in good faith, again, because that's the protections they're wiping out, thinks they are complying and has to do something outside of one of these. Again, I went over the exemptions being vague or broad or undefined.

And we don't know there's a good chance that an officer could knowingly and willfully do something that they think is covered. Turns out it's not. And then you've given up all of these immunities.

And in addition to that, there's also the code section that gives officers indemnity protections by their agency that, you know, the agency would pay for the fine. Effectively that's gone too, also because it says notwithstanding any other law wipes that out. So the officers personally will be on the hook for these fines.

And it's, it's a big concern with.

With all respect, that is an extreme interpretation of, of that language. When we create penal code sections, we do not in every single one. Oh sorry, one of those bills, list out every defense that someone can make. There's, there's background law for that that's been around for a very long time.

This does not take away those, those defenses. So I respectfully, to Mr. Feldman, the interpretation of that, that's an extreme interpretation.

May I just point out one other statutory issue. If you look to penal code Section 7, it defines willfully and knowingly. Willfully is defined as simply a purpose or willingness to commit the act without requiring any intent to violate the law.

This is to quote any intent to violate the law or to injure another or to acquire any advantage. Similarly, knowingly is defined as a knowledge that the facts exist which bring the act or omission within the provisions of the code and explicitly does not require any knowledge of the unlawfulness of such an act or omission.

And so what that means is using those terms. Now, Senator Wiener could have put in a good faith defense or could have used a different term like maliciously, but those terms just simply refer to the intent to wear the mask.

And as I said before, the good faith defense is actually contained in the immunities that this bill would take away if an officer mistakenly, but in good faith wore a mask outside of their policy or outside of the purview of the statute.

Thank you. Look, I want to acknowledge, I think a couple of things. One, it's sounds like, honestly based off of me hearing from like, both of you, that there is a way to resolve, I think some of these things.

There sounds like a, wanting further definitions and clarification so that we can ensure that local law enforcement understands what the liability is. I think there's a number of ways to do that, whether it's a letter to the Journal, whether it's going through some cleanup language to further define like some of these things.

And I think that that's fair. I recognize we are in the last. Was it three days, two days now, like, of this legislative cycle.

So, you know, Senator Wiener, are, you know, you willing to have some continued conversation with them, write a letter to the Journal to just further clarify some of these, these pieces that, you know, I think that they've raised just in terms of officer liability.

And you know, what I'm hearing is not in opposition to necessarily the policy itself, but wanting to ensure that they're very clear about what some of the legal ramifications are, particularly for individual officers.

Yeah, well, two separate things. I think there is opposition to the policies. Policy itself, and that's fair. It's democracy. And we all get the support. Opposed what we want in terms of the technical items, absolutely.

If Mr. Feldman or anyone thinks that there's an ambiguity that needs to be resolved, I'm absolutely happy to have that conversation. And if needed, do a letter to the Journal or you know, or whatever it takes.

We obviously have some differences in terms of interpretation, but obviously we all want to get it right. And so we're happy to have that conversation, of course.

Yeah. And I appreciate that, Senator, because that's also something that's important to me. I know when we initially had this conversation about this Bill in this topic area, I don't need to tell you how important this is to me.

I mean, these are the things that keep me up at night and what's happening with these Ayes raids in my community. I mean, it is, it is tragic. It haunts me, especially being a Latina and watching this happen to people that look just like members of my family.

My entire family carries their passports on them at all times, including myself. And it is a very strange reality. I also represent communities that have very small local police. Police departments. And so I want to be mindful of them, too, as we're trying to craft these things.

And so I appreciate you recognizing that because that's something that's been important to me, and I know it's part of many conversations that we've had. So, you know, I will certainly be supporting it. Obviously, I'm a. I'm a joint author with you on this bill.

It's a priority piece of legislation, you know, for me, along with my own Bill, and our bills are companion bills. I think from the start, we wanted to make sure that these things. Things both get passed. But I do think that the concerns that they've raised and wanting that clarity, I do think that that's fair as well.

You know, when we first had these conversations, you know, we had an understanding of. Of the problem that we were trying to address here. So. Yeah, appreciate that.

I appreciate that. I know you've, you're. You and your district have gone to hell and back on this, and we're now starting to see it in San Francisco with masked Ayes agents or whoever they are coming into neighborhoods in San Francisco.

I've told my constituents for a while, pay attention to what's happening in Southern California because it's coming. I also do want to just say in terms of this General conversation, early on we were criticized that police officers are not going to arrest other police officers. So it's hard to enforce crimes in this way.

And that's one of the reasons why, working with the committees, we included the civil peace, because we're not this isn't just performative. It's not passing a resolution.

We want to make sure that there are actually incentives, first of all, for departments to adopt good policies, but also for police officers to be mindful when they're interacting with the public and covering their faces. And we're, of course, happy to have those continuing conversations with law enforcement. We want to, absolutely want to get it right.

And we welcome that feedback and I appreciate your comments, Senator.

Thank you. That's it.

Well, I'll wrap up discussion and really want to thank the Committee for the thoughtful discussion on this bill and our witnesses. I will be supporting the bill today because I think the context that we're in in California and our country require that we that we pass this law.

And just beginning of this week, the Supreme Court issued a unprecedented decision that gives federal agents the ability to racially profile people in the course of their enforcement of federal immigration laws, which I would argue is unconstitutional. What we are seeing in California are masked federal agents or even vigilantes.

We've heard reports of people claiming to be border patrol or Ayes agents who are arresting people, kidnapping people, assaulting people. And this is happening throughout California, and that's not acceptable.

And I think this is an unprecedented situation that requires this unprecedented action, but I think necessary action to ensure that federal agents are even local, local law enforcement cannot hide their identity. We have laws in California.

We'll get to this when we get to file item 2 that are specifically focused on making sure that law enforcement cannot hide their identity. And this is essential to ensure trust between the communities that our law enforcement officers are serving.

That's also the foundation of our state sanctuary policy as well, is to ensure that we have trust that people feel comfortable coming forward and reporting crimes. I think the witness who talked about the fact that people are calling an immigration hotline to report crimes because they don't know who to call, who to trust.

That's a problem that erodes public safety. So, yes, this is an issue of public safety. That's why it's before our Committee. And moreover, there are many good police officers, sheriffs and law enforcement personnel in our state.

And I want to make sure that those People who are carrying out their duties in good faith are not impacted by this policy.

So if we need clarification next year through some sort of cleanup legislation, I'm certainly willing to work with Senator Wiener and with law enforcement groups to address that, to make sure that this is being implemented, to carry out the goals of this policy and to make sure that people that are not, you know, doing their job in a good faith effort, not intending to evade their identity or to carry out their duties in a way that's committing harm in our communities, that they are protected as well.

Because we want to also make sure that our public safety officers in California, that we're supporting the work that they're doing to keep our community safe as well.

But I think this is an essential policy and I think it's essential to public safety in California, which is really being compromised right now with the unprecedented and unconstitutional actions that have been happening in our state. People being kidnapped, assaulted.

We've seen so many videos of people that have literally been thrown to the ground that have been in the course of being arrested or detained by Ayes or Border Patrol. That's unacceptable. And so I will be supporting the bill today. And I thank you, Senator Wiener, for bringing this forward and give you the opportunity to close.

Thank you. And I really appreciate the thoughtful discussion. And you know, as I mentioned, I have a very, very long history with my local law enforcement, working closely with sfpd, sitting next to them in court when they're being sued, handling their appeals on immunity issues.

And I understand, you know firsthand the critical, critically important role that they play. We also are in a truly disaster of a situation where we have secret police effectively on our streets. And it's not just terrifying for people, but it is. So it's tearing apart the fabric of society when people who.

Communities in Southern California where people are scared to go out on the street, they're scared to go to work, they're scared to bring their kids to school. And now is the time for us to say what the rules are. And as I said at the beginning, we are currently unaware of local law enforcement doing this.

Can I sit here and tell you with certainty that in a year or two years, we're not going to see any, any local law enforcement anywhere in the State of California doing this. I can't say that with certainty. I hope it never happens.

But let's set the rules now before we start going down potentially that path where absolutely we will sit down with, with the opposition to talk about if there's any kind of ambiguity that we need to address with a letter to the Journal. Potential follow up legislation. I have no issue doing that whatsoever.

I want to get that right. It is important to advance this legislation. I appreciate the support and I respectfully ask for an Aye vote.

Is there a motion moved by Senator Caballero? If the Committee assistant could please call the roll.

SB627. Wiener. Motion is Assembly amendments be concurred in [Roll Call]

Okay, we'll keep that bill on call for Senator Gonzalez. We have one more bill to take. Up. Which is file item 2, SB805 by Senator Perez. If there are any principal witnesses that wish that are testifying in support of SB805, please come forward.

I should probably just leave my.

And Senator, whenever you're ready, you may present.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. SB805 will expand the scope of existing impersonation laws and require law enforcement operating in California to display identification featuring their name or badge number.

It will also authorize law enforcement to request identification from anyone claiming to be an officer if there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, such as impersonating a peace officer, kidnapping, or when there is a legitimate safety concern. Additionally, it will prohibit bounty hunters from engaging in any form of immigration enforcement.

We are facing an extraordinary moment in California. Masked individuals with no name identification, no uniforms, driving unmarked vehicles and carrying firearms are taking our neighbors, both immigrants and American citizens, in broad daylight. When asked by Members of the public to provide badge numbers, they refuse. We assume they are federal agents from Homeland Security or Ayes.

However, unless these individuals provide proper identification, we simply do not know when we receive reports of these individuals using excessive force without identification. The like. When agents beat an undocumented landscaper while he's working after he panicked and ran when they approached him, there's no way to ensure oversight or accountability.

Across the country, there have also been reports of criminals impersonating Ayes officers, using threats and intimidation to target vulnerable communities. For example, a few months back in Los Angeles, an individual flagged down a bus driver claimed claiming to be an Ayes agent, but the driver adhered to district protocol and drove away.

In other states, charges filed against individuals include kidnapping and impersonating a police officer after allegedly detaining a group of Latino men, impersonating an Ayes officer on a University campus, and impersonating an Ayes officer in connection with the sexual assault of a woman while threatening her with deportation.

These concerns are heightened by developments in other states where lawmakers have considered controversial legislation offering to pay $1000 reward to bounty hunters for identifying and reporting undocumented immigrants.

And Washington State, one individual identifying as a bounty Hunter claimed that Ayes intended to enlist bail bond agents and pay them $1,000 for each undocumented individual they helped to detain. When immigration enforcement officers fail to identify themselves, they create opportunities for vigilantes to target our communities.

This lack of transparency fosters confusion, fear and mistrust in communities across the state. This is a common sense proposal to prevent impersonating law enforcement officers while ensuring basic oversight and accountability during enforcement actions. It is supported by over 160 organizations, including local governments from across the state.

Joining me to testify in support of the bill is Jeanette Zanipatan with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, and Francisco Castigan I don't believe is here and at the appropriate time. I respect for your aye vote. I ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Good morning. You have to address the Committee.

Good morning. My name is Jeanette Zanipatin. I 'm the policy. I'm Director of Policy and advocacy for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and I am here to testify in strong support as a co sponsor for SB805. I want to first thank the Senator for her leadership on this really important legislation.

SB805 would require agents who are uniforms that are that properly identify the agency that they are affiliated with as well as have a badge and a and a number so so they can be easily identifiable with certain exemptions.

SB 805 is a critically important measure due to the warrantless arrest and detentions, often by masked individuals dressed in uniforms labeled as police or in military gear, without identifying information or targeting individuals for arrest and detention with no regard to due process.

In light of the US Supreme Court decision to lift the TRO in Los Angeles, this measure is more important now more than ever, given that we have seen on the ground an increase of an excessive use of forced by masked individuals and completely changing their enforcement tactics of arresting and detaining first and asking questions later.

Since these target raids have started in Los Angeles, two individuals have died as a result of these enforcement actions. Carlos Roberto Montoya and Jaime Alanis and many more have been injured with severe and in some instances catastrophic injuries.

Simply put, these raids are military enforcement actions waged against all civilians in Los Angeles by several federal agents as well as fortified by both the National Guard and or our military, which causes a lot of confusion for those individuals on the ground witnessing these arrests and these unconstitutional acts.

Included among these are suspected bounty hunters, deputized law enforcement agents from other states and individuals whose complete origins are unknown. We have family Members and attorneys witnessing these arrests taking place on the streets, churches, work sites and courthouses, asking for individuals to identify themselves and asking where their loved ones are being taken.

Yet these pleas continue to go unanswered. These arrests and detentions are impacting individuals with all types of immigration statuses, including US Citizens. In one case, a young man from Pico Rivera was arrested by several masked men.

We worked with his mother to try to locate him and worked with other organizations such as maldef, our co sponsor of this bill, to try to locate him. Having information about which agency arrested him could have led to this individual being located a lot quicker.

In many cases, being able to locate an individual is key in the event that we need to file a motion for habeas corpus or to prevent someone from being unlawfully deported or sent to a third country.

Similarly, I've spoken to individuals that have been arrested at Ambiance, which is one of the first raids that happened in Los Angeles on June 6th as well, and he recounts the same story, that several individuals were just separated by how they looked and then asked questions later.

And in addition to that, we continue to see again a level of violence increase as well. In my almost 30 years of practice as an immigration lawyer, I've never seen anything like this.

The US Supreme Court decision to lift the TRO in LA and surrounding counties essentially rubber stamps the Federal Government's ability to conduct roving patrols and large scale sweeps of individuals that look like me, arrest folks in places like Home Depot car washes, low wage work sites, or that street vend, or speak English with even so much as a slight accent.

California residents deserve more and will not stand by and allow this abuse of power from taking place. Nor will we condone the unlawful and unconstitutional acts taken on the ground over the last 96 days.

The recent militarized enforcement actions in California have only served to further blur these lines and erode trust between law enforcement and our immigrant communities. The reality is, you know, we are seeing again a high level of excessive use of force.

And even in her dissent, Justice Sotomayor characterized what is is happening on the ground by demonstrating that agents are seizing people using firearms, physical violence and warehouse detentions. She wrote that includes US citizens who are being seized, taken from their jobs.

As she continued, we should not have to live in a country where government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work at a low wage job. For these reasons I urge your support for SB805.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Will now take me to testimony of anyone in support of Senate Bill 805. If you can please state your name, organization and position on the bill.

This Chairman Members Randy Perry on behalf of POC in support of the bill.

Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Members Renee Bardo representing SEIU California in support.

Lizzie Cootsona here on behalf of Mayor Karen Bass in the City of Los Angeles, City of Goleta, City of West Hollywood and the California Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and support. Thank you.

Members Elmer Lazardi here on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Glenn Bacchus for Prosecutors Alliance Action and Drug Policy Alliance in support. I was asked to mention that MALDEF is also co sponsor of this bill. And it is supported by Western center on Law and Poverty. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and Friends Committee on Legislation. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Eric Paredes with the California Faculty Association. On behalf of our 29,000 Members who work in the California State University system. We are in strong support and our members are proud to be co sponsors of this bill. Thank you.

Monica Madrid with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA proud co. Sponsor and support. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to Express support for SB805? Seeing no one else will now take up to two principal witnesses and opposition transition to SB805.

Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Members Ryan Sherman, on behalf of the California Narcotic Officers Association and the other organizations listed in the analysis, want to start off by acknowledging Senator Perez's work on this and a bunch of the amendments she's taken which have definitely made the Bill better.

We fully support the provisions regarding impersonation of police officers. However, it does appear that the goal for both of these bills, 805 and 627, are based on Ayes actions. And we're very concerned about us being included in that, especially since this law, although it's been debated, won't apply to federal officers in the performance of their duties.

As Mr. Massagne stated for SB627, federal law is pretty clear on that. And even though they talked about, you know, DUIs and running red lights, that applies to everybody. This is actually, this bill is trying to get Ayes to do or not do very something very specific in relation to the duties of their officers.

And that part is clearly unconstitutional. I would like to also point out one of our biggest concerns with the bill is in Section 7288, undercovers are accepted and we appreciate. Exempted. Excuse me. And we appreciate that. However, state officers engaged in plainclothes operations are exempt, and that's, we think, a positive amendment as well.

However, there's no identical exemption for local officers. Local officers engaged in plainclothes operations are not exempt under this bill. And we don't understand why there would be an exemption for state plainclothes officers, but not an identical one for the locals. And that's concerning for us and our Members.

And based on that, I've got some more talk about, but I'll just yield my time and respectfully request no vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to express opposition to SB805? Please state your name, organization and position on the bill.

Good morning. Dylan Lisofsky with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and also the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Thank you.

Unless there's anyone else wishing to Express opposition to SB805, I bring it back to the Committee for discussion. Senator Perez, you heard the opposition witness. I just want to give you an opportunity if you'd like to respond.

Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. One, state enforcement is not completely exempted from the bill.

We were very specific in the way that we talked about, including departments that do do plain clothes operations and taking that into account and worked directly with both local law enforcement officers as well as several state agencies about the different nuanced ways that they may need to respond to situations and, and go undercover, do plainclothes operations and try to take that into account into this bill.

We understand that local law enforcement as well as state enforcement, and sometimes even federal law enforcement enforcement has undercover operations. There may be reasons for not identifying themselves and we wanted to recognize that in this piece of legislation. So have worked very heavily on that piece with several agencies, including with the opposition himself.

Okay, thank you colleagues. Any questions or comments? Senator Caballero.

Thank you very much for bringing this bill forward and also for the testimony. To me, this is such a simple concept, which is that you, in the course of your duties as a police officer and having served as a mayor, had a lot of interaction with police officers and with the chiefs as well.

You should identify yourself and have a way to identify yourself. And it's so endemic in our rules and regulations, it's almost ridiculous to have to say it because every single cop movie on TV that I saw as a kid has someone walking up going officer, so and so, you know, it's like here's my authority.

And so let me just ask you this. You made a good point about the plain closed operations.

But the way that I read it when I was reading the bill, and I really appreciate this because the other part of it is that if you're going to pretend you're a law enforcement officer and try to get away with something, then we need to slap you down because we really do need to have faith and trust.

So you your identification, sir, is that or that you cited 7288. And I see the paragraph that talks about which is the large B plain close operations in all the state entities. But then it goes on in C to say well to D actually, well, there's a list of things that would qualify and one is exigent circumstances.

And the E basically says when there's a specific articulable and particularized reason to believe identification would pose a significant danger to the physical safety of the peace officer. That, to me, really encapsulates plain closed operation.

In other words, where you're undercover or you don't want anybody to know that you're an officer, the requirement that you have to show a badge in order to be able to have interaction with the individual, does that not cover the situation that you were referring to?

And again, we appreciate those amendments. I think they're very helpful. Our concern, again, is the disconnect between the language used where in section A it talks about undercover operations and activities. And then. And that's for everybody, that exemption first state for anyone, and then in B, it very clearly states engaged in plainclothes operations.

And I don't believe that E fully encompasses that language engaged in plainclothes operations, because E spells out certain things that have to happen before that exemption in E would go into effect.

Whereas there's some concern, some specific issue that the officer is facing or that is going on in the public, and that's why that officer needs to be exempted. Where is. If it just said engaged in plainclothes operations were exempt for local officers as well, that would have been great. And I think we understand what's going on.

We understand all the problems that are happening at the federal level with all of this, and we really don't like being stuck in the middle of it, but we're just concerned about trying to make sure that we can best represent and take care of our Members.

In other words, you want it to be as inclusive as possible.

Yeah, if we could just get that language in there that they use for the state, that would have been great.

Got it. So maybe it's a letter to the Journal to make it very, very clear, and then it can be fixed the next time around. I mean, I understand what you're saying. I think it's included. Quite frankly, you're talking about an excess of caution.

And I would do the same thing in your shoes, but I think it's covered. But just to make sure, it probably should be very, very clear that we're talking about local government as it as in addition to state agencies as well. So thank you very much for that clarification. I appreciate it.

Any other questions or comments? Vice Chair Seyarto?

So a lot of my comments are pretty much in line with the previous Bill as well. But I did have one question regarding the constitutionality with the relationship between us doing state policy and applying it to the Federal Government.

Did you get anything from legal counsel indicating a letter or anything like that, where they opined that it was constitutional or unconstitutional.

Our legislation's not targeting the Federal Government. It's unconstitutional to target the Federal Government. This applies to all law enforcement operating in the State of California. California, therefore, not violating the Supremacy Clause. In addition to that, the state has the authority and the responsibility to utilize its policing powers.

What this Bill is relying on is basically saying if someone's not identifying themselves and making it clear that they are with the Federal Government and we don't know, then our local law enforcement has the right to investigate. And making that very clear, as you can probably imagine. And I know, you know, you yourself, Senator.

Senator Sierra To, You're a firefighter. You've worked very closely with local law enforcement. It's created a very uncomfortable situation for many police chiefs and police officers in my area who've seen these raids happen, and they have no idea if these folks are with the Federal Government or not.

And it's a very uncomfortable situation for cops to be investigating potential cops. And so making that very clear that if we don't know someone's not identifying themselves, they can and they must investigate. So I hope that answers your question.

No. Did you get a letter or not?

Did I get a letter from.

Letter in regards to the constitutionality of it or not? From Ledge Counsel. Because they'll. They'll just issue a really short. Yeah, your. Your. Your Bill has some constitutional issues.

We did not request any sort of letter because our bill is not unconstitutional.

I should have asked that for the other one also, but I'm too late for that. So we'll take care of that on the floor.

Another question I had is most of this is directed at the federal agencies, so why all of a sudden are we focused so much on creating legislation on what hasn't really been an issue with our local agencies and identification especially, you know, even our undercover people, as soon as they're in a controlled situation, they identify themselves.

They've got their badges. But it also, when you're talking about people impersonating. Yeah. They have badges too, believe it or not, and they have little IDs that are fake. So it doesn't kind of eliminate that problem. All it does is kind of put our officers in the position of doing something they already do.

And that's why it's already the law that, you know, some of this is already covered in the law.

The impersonating an officer is already a law that we, you know, when we find people that break that law, but we only find them when they're doing that repeatedly and our officers finally hear about it and those detectives go out and find them. And so it seems to me now we're taking.

We're creating another law to do something that's already law in California and because of what the Federal Government is doing when it probably won't even apply to them. So that's my problem with this approach to problem solving in California because I kind of put it under the knee jerk situation.

And again, we're firing arrows at the Federal Government and they're hitting our local agencies instead. And I don't think that's fair to them. This has not been a problem in the 35, 40 years that I've been exposed to law enforcement. And all of a sudden it is. And it's really. It is at the federal level.

I get it. But it's not. It hasn't been a problem with our local agencies.

I mean, we've worked very closely with local law enforcement on this Bill in particular. That was a big priority. And this is about setting a standard for all law enforcement operating in the State of California. This is not about targeting any one single group. Did you want to.

I would just add, you know, community trust has been eroded in this instance, and I think local law enforcement recognizes that they need to ensure that they are able to re establish those relationships with communities.

I'll just add that this bill applies to law enforcement. Those that may impersonate. Right. A law enforcement official. That's a serious issue because that puts officers in harm's way and that puts the community in harm's way. Any other questions or comments? Okay, if not, I'll turn it back over to Senator Price to close.

Yeah, I, you know, I'm very happy that we're in the final stages of this Bill and have appreciated all of the support and partnership that we've received for from so many in this process and particularly want to highlight, you know, both the police chiefs pora who have been tremendous partners.

I first brought forward this idea after talking with several police chiefs that are in my district who were frankly, very frustrated and felt like they were in a very odd situation.

Suddenly having federal immigration enforcement officers come into their communities and unmarked conf cars not identifying themselves and suddenly not knowing who these folks are, whether or not they are federal officers or just vigilantes, that's a real problem. I think, about what happened to Roberto Carlos and we still don't know what agencies were involved in his death.

That's unacceptable. And he is one of my constituents. There's another man who passed away, that was killed in Camarillo. You know, that's another ongoing investigation. We need accountability here. I mean, this is baseline. And the fact that we have even gotten to this point is very scary.

And for so many reasons, we need to pass legislation like this. I mean, we saw what happened in Minnesota just a couple of months ago. If somebody impersonating a police officer killed a state Senator and her husband, these are real things that are happening.

And boards cannot even begin to express, you know, how concerned I am just watching the State of our country and the direction that things are going.

So, you know, I think that this is honestly a very small and kind of basic thing that we can do to try to recognize the pain that so many of our communities are feeling, try to make people feel safe and also give people the confidence that when local law enforcement's operating in our communities, whether it's federal enforcement or state enforcement, that they'll be able to identify and.

And know who they are. So thank you all so much. And urgent Aye vote.

Thank you very much. Is there a motion on the bill move by Senator Gonzalez? So I'd like to ask the Committee assistant to please call the roll.

SB SB805. Perez. The motion is semi amendments be concurs in. [Roll Call]

Okay, that bill is out on a vote of five to one. Thank you. Going back to. We lift the call on file item one, SB627.

The current vote is four to one. [Roll Call]

That bill's also out in a vote of 5 to 1. Okay, that completes our business for this morning. Morning's hearing. With that, the Senate Standing Committee on Public Safety is now turned.