0:01

From KQED. Before

0:04

we start, just wanted to give you

0:06

a heads up that this episode briefly

0:08

references violence, sexual assault, and suicide. If

0:11

you or someone you know needs support,

0:13

we've got links to resources in the

0:15

episode description. Hey

0:18

everyone, Suki here. I've

0:20

got a conversation with a very special guest

0:22

to share with you in this bonus episode

0:24

of On Our Watch. Those

0:27

internal affairs recordings that you heard in

0:29

this podcast, both in season one and

0:31

in season two, never would

0:33

have been made public without California

0:35

State Senator Nancy Skinner. She

0:39

authored a landmark police transparency bill, Senate

0:41

Bill 1421, which was signed into law

0:45

in 2018 as the Right to Know Act. This

0:49

law finally broke through decades of

0:51

secrecy in the state, and

0:53

she further expanded it a few years later

0:55

with SB 16. Skinner

0:58

is serving her final term in

1:00

the legislature this year, and joined

1:02

me to talk about her legacy,

1:04

the ongoing barriers to transparency, and

1:07

I was able to share with her some

1:09

of what we found out about use of

1:11

force at New Folsom and the crisis among

1:13

correctional staff. Thank

1:17

you so much for joining me, Senator, as

1:19

the architect of this law, which has done

1:22

so much for law enforcement transparency in California.

1:24

I wanted to bring you on the podcast

1:26

to reflect on what's changed in the past

1:28

five years, you know, where you

1:30

still see the need for improvement in terms of

1:33

transparency. But before we get

1:35

into all that, can you also just give us a

1:37

little insight into how the law came to be? Certainly

1:41

and thank you for doing the podcast

1:43

and for focusing on this very important

1:45

issue. Back in the 70s,

1:47

California passed a law that

1:49

blocked public access to any

1:52

and all records related to

1:54

police conduct. And if

1:56

you compare that to California's Public Records

1:58

Act, where you can pretty much record

2:00

request or receive any info you might

2:02

want about a city or county employee,

2:04

whether they're a librarian or a street

2:06

sweeper, you can find out anything. It

2:08

doesn't even have to be misconduct, but

2:11

not police. They were the one

2:13

category of, say, city or county

2:15

employees, just as an example, for

2:18

you could get no information. So

2:20

California had almost a 50-year block

2:23

and a total secrecy on police

2:25

records, which made us arguably the

2:27

least transparent state in the U.S.

2:30

of A, which is odd when

2:32

you consider, you know, what we pride ourselves

2:34

about. And there were numerous

2:36

previous attempts by other legislators. And

2:39

when those efforts came around, when I was

2:41

in the Assembly, I voted yes on each

2:43

one of them, but none of them made

2:46

it. I can tell you a little

2:48

bit more about then why my staff and I in

2:50

2018 decided to act. Yeah.

2:53

Tell me about that. What

2:55

made the conditions kind of ripe

2:58

for it to finally go through

3:00

in 2018? There

3:03

were a number of well-publicized

3:06

law enforcement incidents, whether it's Rodney

3:08

King or other things, Oscar Grant,

3:10

the shooting at the BART platform

3:13

on a New Year's Eve, you

3:15

know, where the public was like, hey, what happened? What

3:17

went on? And were these

3:19

people investigated? And did the police

3:22

act justifiably? You know,

3:24

what were the conditions? But

3:26

we couldn't find out. So you know,

3:28

there's always been some high-profile incidents, but

3:30

there just seemed to be much more

3:33

public attention to a number of

3:36

high-profile incidents in 2018 in that

3:38

time period where there

3:43

was an openness for some access to police

3:45

records. So those were some of the things

3:47

that then made my staff and I sit

3:49

down and think, okay, if we're

3:51

going to attempt this, given that every attempt

3:53

prior has failed, how are we going to

3:55

frame it? And we thought, all right, we're

3:58

going to focus on three specific areas. If

4:01

an officer kills someone or

4:03

causes great bodily injury or

4:06

used a gun on someone, that those are things

4:08

that of course the public feels like, hey, I

4:10

want to know what happened there. If

4:13

there was sexual assault by an officer on

4:15

a member of the public, or

4:18

if an officer is engaged in falsifying

4:20

records or dishonesty, tampering of evidence, that

4:22

kind of thing. We thought those three,

4:25

who could in a justifiably

4:28

or with their head held up

4:30

high argue that those things should

4:32

not be made publicly available. The

4:36

law, the Right to Know Act,

4:38

went into effect actually before the

4:40

killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis

4:42

and the massive protests, which was

4:44

really interesting just as a

4:47

reporter to

4:49

be equipped when that

4:51

happened to begin to respond

4:53

to questions here in

4:55

California about police departments. We finally were

4:58

able to get some answers and to

5:00

get some transparency. In the last season

5:02

of this podcast, we were able to

5:04

find out new details about the killing

5:07

of Oscar Grant that were really

5:09

impactful for the family. And

5:12

also, I think really important in

5:14

understanding that seminal incident. For

5:17

you, what's the most gratifying

5:20

impact that you've seen from the law

5:22

that you're the most proud of? Well,

5:25

let's talk the Oscar Grant situation.

5:28

The Fruitvale-Bart Station is in my district.

5:31

Oscar Grant was my constituent. I

5:34

know now his mother very well, his uncle,

5:37

Uncle Bobby, various other

5:39

family members. When

5:42

that incident occurred, Bart

5:45

itself did not have good police review.

5:48

That was one of the big issues that people felt

5:50

like, wow, Bart doesn't even have

5:52

an independent review board of their police.

5:54

Of course, we can't get records on

5:57

this incident. Of course, the family. I

6:00

mean, they were kept in the dark until

6:02

there were the lawsuits. I mean, sure,

6:05

there were charges taken against the officer

6:07

who killed Oscar

6:09

Grant. That officer was Johannes Mezterle. But

6:11

the only information they got was that

6:14

which was revealed in court. They had

6:16

no other information. And

6:18

it was just horrible to watch that. So

6:21

I was very, very happy when

6:23

1421 passed

6:26

that immediately, of course, Oscar

6:28

Grant's family requested those records.

6:31

It took a while for BART to release them,

6:33

but they did finally get them and it brought

6:36

a lot of closure for them. But

6:40

now let's go to how does public

6:42

safety work? How do we achieve public

6:44

safety? It's not just

6:46

having police in our communities. It's

6:49

that the police have the cooperation and

6:51

respect from community members.

6:54

So from my point of view,

6:57

if we know that our police

6:59

departments and our law enforcement agencies

7:02

take misconduct seriously and that they

7:04

hold officers accountable for misconduct, then

7:07

we're going to trust them more. And when

7:09

we get the records, it lets us

7:11

know, hey, you know, was officer

7:13

X accused of anything? And

7:15

if so, what steps did

7:18

our police department take in investigating officer

7:20

X? And then what consequences

7:22

were there? That's why

7:24

having access to these records is

7:27

important. And

7:29

where is the conversation around law enforcement transparency

7:31

now? Like, what have you heard from

7:33

your constituents? What are the conversations you have

7:36

with other lawmakers? Well,

7:39

you know, we've discussed already that

7:41

1421, the first attempt that was

7:43

successful in over 40 years was

7:45

modest. And then

7:47

we did SB 16 because

7:50

we saw, you know, whether it was

7:52

George Floyd or other incidents, we just

7:54

saw that, look, racial bias

7:56

is a legitimate thing for the

7:59

public to are there

8:01

a set of officers in a particular

8:03

department that have umpteen

8:05

numbers of complaints around

8:08

racial bias that have been investigated

8:10

and upheld? And then some

8:13

of the other things that SB 16 did was

8:16

look at what other kinds of excessive

8:18

use of force. So not just the

8:20

gun, there are many

8:22

other types of excessive force. Or

8:26

the other thing we wanted to ensure, let's

8:28

say you're an officer who under

8:31

1421 that

8:33

you had some falsifying of records,

8:35

you had committed some dishonesty. And

8:38

we want to find out

8:40

about this. Well, you quit

8:42

the force before the investigation is

8:44

completed. So then it's not on

8:46

your personnel record and it's not

8:49

available to me. So

8:51

then you go and get hired

8:53

by another police agency. So

8:55

basically by not requiring that

8:58

records follow the officer

9:01

and that each agency who

9:03

hires an officer requests explicitly

9:05

whether there were such

9:08

investigations on that officer, we allow

9:10

bad apples to move around to

9:12

different law enforcement agencies. So that

9:14

was another really important improvement of

9:16

SB 16. But

9:18

of course there are probably other legitimate things

9:20

that the public has the right to know

9:22

that aren't covered yet in 1421 or 16.

9:26

And we can talk about some of that. I have ideas.

9:29

Somebody in the future will have to do them. One

9:32

thing that we've seen in recent years,

9:34

especially since the passage of the

9:37

Right to Know Act, are these

9:39

memorandums that are being entered into

9:41

between the employers, the

9:44

employing agency, and the

9:46

unions basically giving notice

9:49

or agreeing to give notice to any officer

9:51

who is named in the records before they're

9:53

released. And in some

9:56

lights, you can see how that

9:58

makes sense. Oh, my God.

10:00

name is going to go out to the public, I

10:02

would like to know that as an individual. But

10:05

I think my concern from a transparency

10:07

perspective is that it also gives the

10:10

ability then for the union lawyers to

10:12

intervene and say, oh, this is actually

10:14

not a disposable record. And

10:16

they get kind of a first shot

10:18

at claiming that it's non-disclosable before the

10:20

public gets a chance to look at

10:22

the underlying misconduct. And so I

10:25

just wanted to know if you've heard anything about that or

10:27

if you have any thoughts on it. Well,

10:29

I've definitely heard some about it and I'll

10:31

preface my next set of comments

10:34

about it with, look,

10:36

police officers have a very

10:38

difficult job. I do not

10:40

envy police officers. Every

10:43

time they walk out of their door, meaning,

10:45

you know, they leave home to go to

10:47

work in uniform, they take their lives in

10:49

their hands. I'm

10:52

careful about the way I do legislation such

10:54

as both SB 1421 and SB 16 to

10:56

legitimately give

11:01

our officers some right to privacy. Their

11:03

name should not be disclosed when it's not

11:06

appropriate. We don't need them to be targets

11:08

if they have not, you know,

11:10

really engaged in serious

11:12

misconduct. So I'm very, very protective of

11:14

that privacy. And I also

11:17

respect their ability to have a collective bargaining

11:19

unit to be in union. Now,

11:21

on the other hand, it's I

11:23

don't like MOU agreements that unnecessarily

11:26

or unlawfully delay the release of

11:28

records that the public have a

11:30

right to know about. So

11:32

it is a balance. We want to protect their privacy, but

11:35

we do not want MOUs that

11:37

are counter to good laws that

11:40

we have passed. If

11:58

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12:28

Hey KQED listeners, I'm Right Nowish podcast

12:30

host Pindarvis Harshar. Dropping online to invite

12:32

you to a summer evening of live

12:34

contemporary jazz at the KQED headquarters in

12:36

San Francisco. Thursday June 20th at 7

12:38

p.m. We've got a stacked

12:41

lineup of dope musicians including vocalist Jamie

12:44

Z, saxophonist Lidia Rodriguez and harpist Destiny

12:46

Mahoney. A news flash is the closing

12:48

event for our podcast. We've had a

12:51

great run so help us celebrate the

12:53

end of this chapter. Get

12:55

tickets to liner no

12:58

slide at kqed.org/events. At

13:05

my organization KQED, you know, we've

13:07

really made a push statewide

13:10

to try and get as many

13:12

of these internal records as possible

13:14

to help the public, you know,

13:16

gain access and understanding of these,

13:18

you know, key public institutions. Our

13:20

local police departments, state law enforcement

13:22

agencies and most recently my

13:24

focus has really been on the California

13:27

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which is

13:29

the largest employer of peace officers in

13:31

the state and is also

13:33

one of the most kind of

13:36

obscure, not obscure agencies, but

13:38

opaque. Yeah, very, you know,

13:40

hard to see inside of.

13:42

It's a closed world, literally,

13:44

you know, everything happens behind

13:46

these walls and,

13:48

you know, one thing that we

13:51

were able to find out by,

13:53

you know, utilizing the public records

13:55

law by utilizing the right to

13:58

know act was the incredibly high

14:00

number. of these very serious use

14:02

of force incidents at this one

14:04

prison, California State Prison Sacramento, which

14:07

is also kind of colloquially known

14:09

as New Folsom. And

14:11

I was just wondering, like, in your years kind of on

14:13

the Public Safety Committee and, you

14:16

know, overseeing CDCR and other,

14:18

via other committees, if

14:20

this prison had come to your attention

14:22

before? Well,

14:27

first, this is exactly the

14:29

proof of the validity and

14:31

the need for bills

14:34

like 1421 and SB 16

14:36

to enable us to get that information

14:39

about if we have a

14:41

particular prison that has

14:43

far higher incidents, then

14:45

we have to wonder, what is

14:47

it about the culture at that

14:49

prison that creates this kind

14:51

of violence, staff on

14:54

incarcerated individual violence, which

14:56

your request of the record seems to indicate.

14:59

Because we, interestingly, even legislators,

15:01

I can't just go to a

15:03

prison unannounced and visit it. No,

15:06

there's all kinds of rules that prohibit.

15:08

And California now, you know, we already

15:10

talked about we had the 40-year kind

15:13

of 50-year really blackout on

15:16

these records. Well, we've had almost

15:18

an equivalent number of years where

15:21

we've denied media access to our

15:23

prisons. And, again, this

15:25

is where we are an outlier.

15:27

Many, many states, Maine, Rhode Island,

15:30

many others allow much

15:32

more journalistic access to

15:35

their prisons than California does, which is why

15:37

I'm carrying a bill this year, SB 254,

15:41

which would restore limited

15:43

access of news media

15:45

to our California prisons, as well

15:47

as access to our judicial branch

15:50

and legislators to be able to,

15:52

you know, go in and check

15:54

out the conditions in our prisons.

15:57

I chair California's Women's Caucus, which

15:59

is now 50 strong. We have 50

16:01

women in the legislature out of 120, so we're

16:03

really proud of that. But

16:06

we've been focused on there's two women's

16:08

state prisons. And just

16:10

this year, we have a situation

16:12

where a DA in,

16:14

I believe it's Madera County, has

16:17

charged one officer from our facility

16:19

in Chowchilla, our women's facility in

16:21

Chowchilla, charged that officer with 90

16:24

assaults of sexual assault

16:27

against some 16 different

16:29

incarcerated individuals. And

16:32

the horrific part was that he

16:34

did this sexual assault while these

16:36

women were waiting to go before

16:38

the parole board. So here you

16:40

are, you're prepping yourself, you

16:42

know, this is the determination of whether you

16:45

can go free or not. And this man

16:47

is taking you into a room and assaulting

16:49

you. I mean, it is beyond horrific. So

16:51

the Women's Caucus, we have gotten very involved

16:54

in that. We did a trip to

16:56

that prison. So far, we

16:58

don't have a comprehensive set

17:00

of things that we're trying

17:02

to enact to change the

17:04

conditions. But we certainly have

17:06

strengthened California's Office of the

17:08

Inspector General over our prisons

17:10

for the incarcerated individuals to

17:12

get complaints of this sort

17:14

of behavior to the Inspector

17:16

General rather than just to

17:19

officials within the prison they're in. Because of

17:21

course, when you're in that kind of closed

17:23

environment, you don't know. Is your complaint even

17:25

going to be taken seriously? So those

17:28

are some of the issues that having

17:30

transparency, getting records, getting journalists into

17:32

our prisons is going to help

17:34

us. I have

17:37

also in my reporting talked to

17:40

quite a few incarcerated women who,

17:42

you know, experienced things themselves and

17:44

also just experienced the brokenness of

17:46

the grievance system. I think

17:48

one of the very concerning patterns that

17:51

we found in our reporting was just

17:53

how many similar grievances

17:55

we found piling up

17:57

against a particular officer. it

18:00

was very easy to identify somebody

18:03

who was repeatedly using very

18:05

serious use of force and

18:07

injuring people. And people were

18:09

filing grievances on this person, but

18:11

there was no upholding of it.

18:13

There was no discipline. And a

18:16

lot of that goes down to kind

18:18

of the credibility issue that the incarcerated

18:20

people filing the grievances didn't have credibility

18:22

and that wasn't captured on camera. And

18:24

I think for some of the sexual

18:26

assault instances, it's been the same where

18:28

it's like piled up. Well,

18:31

the the officer I mentioned with

18:33

the 80 counts against him, his

18:36

name is Rodriguez, you

18:38

know, he took the women in a room. He

18:40

knew that camera was not there. There was no

18:42

camera in the room that he took them. And,

18:44

you know, that was definitely purposefully done and it

18:46

was over a number of years. The

18:49

assaults. And it's hard to

18:51

imagine that no one else knew. So

18:55

the other thing that we have

18:57

to make sure is

18:59

that whatever reforms we put

19:01

in, not only go

19:03

after the perpetrator, but anyone who

19:05

aids or abets or

19:08

aids or abets the perpetrator or sees it

19:10

and does nothing about it. Yeah.

19:13

And I think that is going

19:16

to be the key, which is also,

19:18

I think, a really tough nut to

19:20

crack, you know, which is the issue

19:22

of the code of silence, the culture

19:24

of fear inside CDCR and that that

19:26

is not just a people who are

19:28

incarcerated, that staff as well. You

19:30

know, medical staff that I've spoken

19:33

to, psychiatric staff and also correctional

19:35

officers. And they fear blowing

19:37

the whistle. They fear coming forward and

19:39

they say if they do,

19:41

you know, they fear that they will be

19:44

you know, labeled a rat by their

19:47

fellow officers and mistreated by them. And

19:49

then the administrators also, they'll kind of

19:51

blacklist them and put them off to

19:53

the side. It will be very kind

19:55

of subtle and hard to see retaliation,

19:57

but that retaliation that they know

19:59

will. come or that they say they

20:01

know will come. The terrible,

20:04

terrible irony of this mistreatment,

20:08

this, in some cases,

20:10

brutal conditions in

20:13

our prison facilities against

20:15

our incarcerated individuals, the

20:17

damage is not just to the

20:19

incarcerated individual. Our

20:22

corrections officers, they

20:25

have high rates of suicide, they

20:28

have their average life

20:30

expectancy, is they die before

20:32

age 60. While they

20:35

can retire with great retirement

20:37

benefits at, I think, age 52 or so,

20:39

they don't even live

20:41

past that. And so

20:43

the level of stress when you're

20:45

in a setting like that,

20:48

where either you are yourself

20:50

engaged in this very

20:53

inhumane conditions, inhumane treatment,

20:56

or that you are going against

20:59

your own moral

21:01

self to observing it, it

21:04

damages everyone. And this

21:06

is why I think Governor Newsom

21:08

has adopted this Norway model. And

21:11

a number of us legislators have taken trips,

21:13

and I was one of them, who we've

21:15

gone and seen the prisons

21:17

in Norway and what they do instead

21:20

and how they treat it. They look

21:22

at their prison system as, yes, the

21:24

individual committed a heinous

21:26

act. However, likely that individual at some

21:28

point is going to go back home,

21:31

is going to live in our community.

21:33

So how do we use the time

21:35

that we have them in custody to

21:37

best bring them to a circumstance

21:39

where they can be productive

21:42

and healthy and contribute to their

21:44

community instead of hurting it? So

21:47

I was very, very happy to see

21:49

Governor Newsom embrace that. You

21:52

brought up officer suicide, which was

21:55

a really recurrent theme and

21:58

problem that we found in our reporting.

22:00

as well. And I think one thing

22:02

that really shocked me was just how

22:05

many suicides there were. You know, we

22:07

found through talking to the Correctional Officers

22:09

Union, the CCPOA, and other word of

22:11

mouth sources that 31 officers

22:13

died over a four-year period by

22:15

suicide between 2020 and 2024. And

22:20

that was just a pretty staggering number

22:22

and also not a complete number. And

22:25

so I went to CDCR and asked

22:27

them for their numbers and they said,

22:29

we don't track this. And

22:31

the fact that they said they don't track

22:34

this problem, which I feel is like the

22:36

highest level red flag indicator of a

22:38

mental health crisis in their employee base, I

22:41

think is very problematic. I don't know if

22:43

you can comment on that. Well,

22:46

they should track it. And I

22:48

feel that CCPOA should also, because

22:51

there's often tension between the

22:53

legislature and CCPOA. That's the prison

22:55

guards union. But I think if the

22:59

legislature in general, we don't want unhealthy

23:02

work conditions for anyone. And here,

23:04

this is one of our largest

23:07

base of state workers. And

23:10

the consequences of bad

23:12

conditions on the job for them have

23:14

great consequences, not only on them, as

23:17

you've indicated, with the suicides, but also

23:19

just their life

23:21

expectancy rate. But

23:24

it also has bad consequences on the

23:26

individuals who are in the prison. And

23:28

while California hasn't embraced completely, Norway's

23:31

sense that look, our role at prisons is

23:33

not focused really on punishment, but it should

23:36

be to prepare you to go home. The

23:38

reality is the majority of our people go

23:40

home too. In other words, the majority of

23:42

people that we're holding in a state prison

23:45

eventually go home. So what good does it

23:47

do if we send them home damaged? And

23:49

what good does it do if the employees

23:51

who are in charge of

23:53

them in custody are also damaged? None

23:56

of that is healthy. So it's

23:58

one thing I've done a lot is.

24:00

engaged with RCC POA to really work

24:02

with them together to

24:06

kind of embrace, hey, we could do

24:09

it differently and it could be much

24:11

improved for you, the worker, and

24:13

for that individual who's being held by us.

24:17

All right, I know I've taken up a

24:19

lot of your time and I just so

24:21

appreciate it and I wanted to know, is

24:23

there anything else that I didn't ask you

24:25

about that you wanna bring up today or

24:27

talk about on the podcast? Well,

24:30

this is my last year in the

24:32

legislature so I won't get to add

24:34

more police transparency, at

24:39

least as a legislator for the moment, but

24:41

I certainly, as chair of the Women's Caucus,

24:45

we have engaged more in these issues because

24:48

I really hope that more of

24:50

my colleagues that are gonna continue

24:52

in the legislature beyond me will

24:55

really embrace the importance that

24:58

we have a good carceral system.

25:01

And I know for some people that

25:03

just putting those two words together from

25:05

their point of view and oxymoron, but

25:08

public safety is our objective. And

25:11

having a inhumane system does not

25:13

help public safety. And I think

25:15

more of my women colleagues are

25:18

understanding that. And we've arranged a

25:20

trip to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and

25:22

Ireland for some women legislators in

25:25

September to visit their women's carceral

25:27

facilities and to see how they're

25:30

doing it differently in those countries to see

25:32

what lessons learned we can bring home to

25:34

California. Thank you so much

25:36

for your time, Senator. Okay, thank you. If

25:44

you wanna learn more about the Right

25:47

to Know Act and other law enforcement

25:49

transparency bills, we'll include links in the

25:51

episode description. Please continue to

25:53

send tips or feedback about the

25:55

series to honorwatch at kqed.org. hosted

26:00

by me, Suki Lewis. It

26:02

was edited by Jen Chien, who

26:04

is also Kiki Weidiz director of

26:06

podcasts. It was produced by

26:08

Chris Agusa. Final Mixing by

26:10

Christopher Beal. Original music

26:13

by Ramtin Arablui, including our

26:15

theme song. Additional music from

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Funding for On Our Watch is provided

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26:39

Kernan. And thanks to all of

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you for listening.