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Newsletters
THE LEGISLATURE PUTS SOME TEETH IN POBR
Police Chiefs beware. On September 30, 2002, Governor Gray Davis signed into law Senate Bill 1516, providing enhanced remedies to officers whose rights under the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act get violated. The brainchild of this bill was Alhambra POA President and PORAC Director Joe Flannagan. Flannagan saw numerous egregious violations of POBR at his own agency under the direction of then Alhambra Police of Police Leon Burrus. That time, Alhambra POA sought and obtained an injunction to prevent further violations of POBR. Flannagan felt, and correctly so, that there needed to be more incentive to get management to follow the law. As we all know, any officer who violates the law, is held accountable. In Alhambra, there was no discipline imposed on any of the management staff whom the Court concluded violated officers rights under POBR. All that resulted was , an injunction being issued which compelled the agency to follow the law, something they should have been doing all along. Flannagan felt there should be a monetary penalty to provide the necessary incentive to management to stop the violations.
During the PORAC Conference in 2000, Flannagan, with the assistance of Dieter Dammeier of Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, drafted proposed legislation to provide enhanced remedies for officers whose rights are violated. The proposal was overwhelmingly endorsed at the PORAC Conference. PORAC then directed its lobbyist Aaron Read & Associates to push the Bill forward. Our friend and staunch labor supporter, Senator Gloria Ramero agreed to author the Bill for the 2001 Legislative Session.
During the 2001 Legislative Session, Joe Flannagan, Dieter Dammeier, Los Angeles School Police Association President Paul Quezada and its Vice President Kevin Otto traveled to Sacramento to lobby legislators and assist in moving the Bill through the Legislature. This involved several meetings with Ramero's staff and numerous alterations to the language in the Bill. As expected, there was vigorous opposition by the California Chiefs and Sheriffs Associations. As a result of the opposition, the bill was made into a two-year bill to be brought back up in the 2002 Legislative Session.
During the 2002 legislative session, again, Flannagan, Dammeier, Quezada and Otto traveled to Sacramento to lobby the legislation. Dieter Dammeier testified in front of the Senate's Public Safety Committee about Lackie, Dammeier & McGill's experience throughout the State in obtaining injunctions against management for POBR violations and how violations continue despite such injunctions. Randy Perry, from Aaron Read & Associates developed the theme that rank and file are not seeking monetary damages for violations but rather were looking to provide true disincentives to police management to discontinue the violations.
As a result of these efforts, the Senate and Assembly overwhelmingly passed SB 1516 which the Governor then signed. As such, effective January 1, 2003, where the Superior Court finds a Department has "maliciously violated any provision of [POBR] with the intent to injure a public safety officer . . .", in addition to remedies already provided, there shall be an additional remedy of a civil penalty not to exceed $25,000.00, actual monetary damages and reasonable attorney's fees.
Why Chiefs and Sheriffs are so upset about this Bill is still amazing. If they do not plan on "maliciously" violating officer's rights with an "intent to injure" an officer, they should have nothing to worry about.
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