PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE
Welcome From President
Eric Nuñez
Back in early October my wife and I returned to
Orange County from a quick trip to celebrate our daughter ’ s 21st birthday in Chicago . I felt a little under the weather but was not running a temperature , so I returned to work on a Monday as usual . My throat was scratchy and sore , and I was a little wheezy but being asthmatic my entire life , I have dealt with respiratory issues from time to time . I closed my door and was working from my desk when my emergency services coordinator , a retired division chief for Orange County Fire Authority , paid me a visit . He told me that Chicago was an extremely hot area of active COVID-19 incidents and that it would be a good idea to get tested . Good news -I was negative , but I must admit with my previous respiratory issues that I was a little anxious and concerned . I thought about all of those who succumbed to this unpredictable virus and asked out loud , when is this going to end and thought to myself , are we ever going to go back to normal ?
I share this with you because it has been nearly eight months after COVID-19 hit our country and put us in lockdown mode in every sense of that word . No matter how much time has passed , or things have changed , some things seem to remain the same . By now , the state of California has seen peaks with hospital ICU ’ s on the brink of being overwhelmed , curves flatten , surges in the virus , color-coded openings or closings , increased testing and hopes for a vaccine , but with no real end in sight . Now as we slowly open , we are finding spikes of infections with those returning to school , work , sports and recreation causing a new concern over a predicted second surge coming our way .
And if that were not difficult enough , in between the first surge of COVID-19 and the anticipated second surge our country has dealt with a level and type of civil unrest never seen before , which was sparked by the death of George Floyd on May 25th in Minneapolis , Minnesota . The media and social media was set ablaze and it felt as if something or someone was fanning these flames to indict , prosecute and punish all of law enforcement for a pattern of practice of excessive force , and more specifically for becoming a profession reflective of systemic racism , when the data would prove otherwise .
I know that our collective initial reaction was to provide this data ( CA DOJ URSUS ), which was collected by the state of California that indicate a reduction of the use of force by our law enforcement officers over the last three years . When interviewed on the topic of “ increased use of force and killing of civilians of color ,” we attempted to share some of this data and to provide context about the vast majority of officer involved shootings involving civilians who were actually armed . Most of these armed suspects were engaged in the commission of crime , resisting arrest , or assaulting another civilian or police officer . Those interviews were never printed or heard by the public . Instead , we saw articles that helped fan those flames rather than bring calm and reassurance to the public .
As a result , we saw the opposite in some of our communities , and within days it seemed we had hundreds of protests and riots , and some areas completely engulfed in anarchy with millions of voices demanding police reform and police defunding . Sadly , several of these incidents ended in violence resulting in the killing of innocent people and police officers . Not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and loss from the destruction by fires , looting and vandalism of thousands of businesses large and small .
From May 25th to August 30th CPCA ’ s Legislative Committee saw 25 pieces of legislation , 23 of which were gut and amend bills with all of six weeks to discuss , debate , negotiate to amend , or mount a defensive posture and strategy to stop these bills from becoming law . All of these bills dealt with police reform in almost every category : recruitment , training , disciplining , certifying , de-certifying , defunding , use of force , use of deadly force , crowd and riot control and the expansion of previous legislation that disregards POBR or has little concern of the impacts to our cities by creating local unfunded mandates to accomplish some of these draconian changes . Ironically , CPCA had been involved in passing some of most sweeping reform in law enforcement . In 2019 , we supported SB 230 and worked with the authors on the appropriate and most effective language for AB 392 . We had in fact been at the tip of the spear leading the way
4 CALIFORNIA POLICE CHIEF | www . californiapolicechiefs . org