Felony Murder Elimination Project calls on our passionate advocates and supporters to help us tell Governor Newsom – Sign AB572 to protect grieving families from coercive police interrogations.
Assembly Bill 572 is on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. This proposed legislation came from and was written by De-Bug families, who have been impacted by the criminal justice and immigration systems and who are actively involved in organizing and advocating for change through the organization Silicon Valley De-Bug. These families participate in “participatory defense” efforts, where they support each other in navigating legal systems and push for legislative and policy changes to end mass incarceration and unite separated families.
AB 572 came out of their healing circles, when they began to talk about the painful and dark experiences of learning of their loved ones being beat, shot or killed by police, and the police swooping in to rob those moments of grief from families. Taking advantage of the chaos and fog of sometimes not knowing the status of their loved ones, law enforcement would use a trained interrogation technique developed by Bruce Praet (an attorney who defends cops in civil proceedings) and Lexipol to squeeze information out of families in order to justify the harm done to their loved ones.
A quote from their training:
“You got about 5, 10, 30 minutes to get out there before word gets back on the street — that bad guy is either in the hospital, dead, jail or whatever.” – Bruce Praet, co-founder of Lexipol
AB 572 recognizes that practices like these are wrong and provides protections for families whose loved ones were killed or seriously injured by police. This policy becomes part of an officer’s duty manual and/or their policies that can be subject to discipline and/or civil penalties. Most importantly, it prevents the use of coercion or lies during the interview, or to get the interview and is historic, deeply necessary change to policing procedure.
As part of the legislation, before any initial interview of a family member of a person who has been killed or seriously injured by police, the officer or district attorney has to:
- Identify themselves to the family member
- Inform the family member of the status of their loved one
- Inform the family of the nature of the investigation
- Inform the family that they can have a trusted support person during the interview, and there is a choice of whether they can go to the police station or not for the interview.
Testimonies of families who have been harmed by this manipulative practice in the series “The Thin Blue Lie”:
- Sharon Watkins, mother of Phillip Watkins who was killed by San Jose PD on February 11, 2015
- Sam, Deanna, and Joshua, family of David Sullivan who was killed by Buena Park Police on August 19, 2019
- Leti and Christopher Vasquez, family of Marco Vasquez who was killed by Los Angeles Sheriffs on October 6, 2019
Please help us get to 1,000 signatures to deliver to Governor Newsom to urge him to sign AB 572 into law. —>>> Governor Newsom – Sign AB572 to Protect Grieving Families From Coercive Police Interrogations
