The California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee has approved a bill that would ban the use of police dogs for arrests, apprehensions and crowd control, apparently a first-in-the-country measure. The authors of the bill cited the need for the removal of police dogs due to racial bias and violence against Black Americans and people of color.
Assembly Bill 742 seeks to ban the use of police dogs for arrest, apprehensions or any form of crowd control.
The legislation would not prevent the use of police dogs for search and rescue, explosives detection and narcotics searches.
The bill, introduced by Democrat Assemblymen Corey Jackson and Ash Kalra is designed to “end a deeply racialized traumatic and harmful practice by prohibiting the use of police canines,” Jackson said in a statement.
“The use of police canines has been a mainstay in this country’s dehumanizing, cruel, and violent abuse of Black Americans and people of color for centuries.” AB 742 states.
“First used by slave catchers, police canines are a violent carry-over from America’s dark past. In recent decades, they have been used in brutal attempts to quell the Civil Rights Movement, the LA Race Riots, and in response to Black Lives Matter protests.”
ACLU California Action, a statewide advocacy organization of the American Civil Liberties Union, co-sponsored the bill.
“The use of police canines has severe and potentially deadly consequences for bite victims, especially communities of color,” said Carlos Marquez III, executive director of ACLU California Action. “This bill sets a new standard for California and marks an important step in ending this inhumane practice.”
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