Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On April 25, 2024, at approximately 10:31 a.m., the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Communications Center received a 911 call reporting a person had been shot in the 2400 block of Fern Street, Eureka. Deputies were immediately dispatched to the area. While deputies were enroute, it was learned that a White Male Adult walked up to a 75-year-old woman who was standing in front of her garage with her sister and shot at her multiple times. The woman was struck by gunfire, and the suspect fled on foot westbound on Fern toward Walnut Avenue.
Deputies arrived on the scene at approximately 10:38 a.m. and saw a subject matching the description of the suspect walking on Fern. Two deputies exited the patrol vehicle and contacted the suspect at gunpoint. The suspect refused commands and fled into a residence across the street from the location where the victim was shot. An additional deputy arrived on the scene, and the three deputies surrounded the residence while additional units responded to the scene. At approximately 10:40 a.m., the suspect exited the residence and walked toward the deputies’ location, pointing a firearm in the direction of the deputies. The suspect refused commands, and one deputy shot the suspect. The suspect dropped the firearm and fell to the ground. Deputies secured the suspect in handcuffs, and emergency medical assistance was called to the scene. A hasty search was conducted inside the residence to ensure there were no other victims or suspects inside. The deputies then rendered medical aid to the suspect by packing his wounds and performing CPR. Paramedics arrived on the scene and took over the medical care of the suspect and the 75-year-old female victim. Both were subsequently transported to an area hospital where they are receiving treatment for their injuries.
The County Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) protocol was implemented to investigate the shooting. The Humboldt County District Attorney and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office are leading the investigation with other county law enforcement investigators. After CIRT investigators collect all the evidence and conduct all the interviews, more information will be release regarding this incident.
This case is still under investigation.
Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.
The vote comes on the fourth day of a student-led protest and occupation of Siemens Hall — along with one or two other buildings, according to campus administrators, though the activists insist that their occupation is limited to the single academic and administrative building.
The demonstration led to a violent confrontation Monday night between students and officers from multiple law enforcement agencies. The campus was subsequently closed and will remain closed at least through the weekend, according to administrators.
As with demonstrations on college campuses across the country, the students and their supporters at Cal Poly Humboldt are protesting the State of Israel’s actions since the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups. They’re calling for an immediate ceasefire and for Palestinian freedom, and the local protesters have issued a list of demands that includes cutting all university ties with Israel.
President Jackson has been notably absent from public view during these events. However, according to Maureen Loughran, field representative for the CFA union’s Humboldt chapter, today’s University Senate faculty vote was about more than Jackson’s actions — or inaction — this week.
“The president’s been pretty MIA for all kinds of issues, and he has been saying things that didn’t seem welcoming and supportive of students in general,” Loughran said. “We felt that he hasn’t been doing his job, so let’s get rid of him.”
Loughran said that the vote of no confidence was not unanimous but “overwhelmingly in support of the resolution,” with more than 180 votes tallied.
[UPDATE:A member of the faculty told the Outpost via email at 5:14 p.m. that the final vote tally, with 200 eligible voters, was 170 “yes” votes, three “no” votes and seven abstentions.]
Official statements from the university have said that protesters have broken numerous laws, including resisting arrest, destroying and damaging property, criminal trespass and more.
The Los Angeles Times on Thursday reported that university officials condemned “hateful graffiti” that has proliferated across campus, including at least two areas that have been “tagged with language that is harmful to the Jewish community.” Administrators estimate damage to the campus to be “in the millions,” according to the paper.
Here’s the text of the resolution passed this afternoon:
CAL POLY HUMBOLDT
General Faculty
Sense of the Faculty Resolution on
A Vote of No Confidence In President Tom Jackson
25-23/24-EX — April 25, 2024
WHEREAS, On April 22, 2024 students protesting the ongoing war and tragic loss of life of
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip entered Siemens Hall; and
WHEREAS, Shortly after students occupied Siemens Hall, the university called on multiple law
enforcement agencies to respond, which included dozens of armed, non-university police
officers arriving at Siemens Hall wearing body armor and carrying shields; and
WHEREAS, Such a swift and disproportionate police response created unnecessary escalation
resulting in physical assault on students and faculty and injury of law enforcement personnel;
and
WHEREAS, President Tom Jackson and Chief of Staff Mark Johnson, through their unfamiliarity
with the Cal Poly student body mishandled the protest by calling those law enforcement
agencies to attempt to extract protestors from Siemens Hall, which led to the injury of
students and faculty of Cal Poly Humboldt; and
WHEREAS, It is the responsibility of all members of Cal Poly Humboldt campus community to
ensure the safety of our students, now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the General Faculty of Cal Poly Humboldt have no confidence in the
leadership of President Tom Jackson and his Chief of Staff Mark Johnson; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the General Faculty demand Cal Poly Humboldt not pursue disciplinary action
or legal prosecution against any students for actions taken in connection with the protest and
occupation of Siemens Hall; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the Faculty and University provide all necessary and reasonable
accommodations to ensure that every student has the opportunity to successfully complete
their coursework and fulfill their academic requirements for the semester; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the General Faculty demand that Cal Poly Humboldt guarantee full
compensation for all student employees irrespective of their ability to perform their usual
duties; and be it further
RESOLVED, In keeping with our desire to maintain a campus that is safe for our students and
return to the work of educating those students, that the General Faculty of Cal Poly Humboldt
demand the immediate resignation of President Tom Jackson and Chief of Staff Mark Johnson;
and be it further
RESOLVED, That this resolution be distributed to:
The Office of the Chancellor of California State University
The Academic Senate of California State University
Governor Gavin Newsom, State of California
Senator Mike McGuire, President Pro Tempore of the California Senate
Representative Jared Huffman, US House of Representatives
UPDATE, 11:50 a.m.: Speaking to media at the scene — see the video above — Sheriff Billy Honsal confirms that the second gunshot victim, the suspect in the original shooting, was shot by deputies.
Honsal said that the suspect was located shortly after law enforcement arrived to respond to the initial 911 call. When deputies contacted the suspect he ran into a house and, Honsal said, came out bearing a firearm, at which point the officers fired on him.
The man is in critical condition, Honsal said. The elderly woman whom he is believed to have shot is in serious but stable condition.
The county’s Critical Incident Response Team will be leading the investigation of the incident.
###
Cutten’s Cedar and Fern streets are closed at the moment, following two connected shootings this morning. There is a heavy police presence at the scene.
According to scanner traffic and witnesses at the scene, a younger man shot an elderly lady near that intersection. Police arrived and located the suspect, who seems to have fled into home. Additional shots were heard, and the suspect himself was down.
At this moment it’s not clear how the original suspect came to be shot. We also have no word on the condition of either of the people. Two ambulances were seen leaving the scene.
Avoid the area. We’ll be updating as we get more information.
Screenshot of Tuesday’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting.
###
At Tuesday’s meeting, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors received an update on the status of the county’s commercial cannabis permitting program and ongoing efforts to monitor the industry’s impact on local watersheds.
To no one’s surprise, the county has seen “an overall decline in the number of properties that are being cultivated” in recent years, said Planning and Building Director John Ford. To date, the county has received 2,125 cultivation applications, about half of which – 1,068 – have been approved and are being monitored by staff. Of the remaining 1,057 permit applications, 400 are still being processed and 657 have been denied.
Screenshot
Ford noted that the number of active cultivation permits is still well below the 3,500 cap imposed by Resolution 18-43, which was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2018 as a part of the county’s Commercial Cannabis Land Use Ordinance, also known as Ordinance 2.0. The resolution established a permit cap for each of the county’s primary watersheds and certain sub-watersheds to prevent adverse impacts to water quality and fisheries.
When the resolution was adopted, the county was expecting an onslaught of new permit applications, Ford said. “At the time, there was concern that we would see a repeat of [Ordinance] 1.0 when over 2,000 applications were submitted [to the county] in 2016,” he said. “[Staff] wanted to make sure that there was an understanding that this wasn’t just going to continue to expand at that rate.”
However, the opposite happened. In the years following legalization, the price of cannabis plummeted due to massive overproduction across the state, pushing hundreds of local farmers into debt and forcing many others to call it quits.
“We’re not seeing new applications come in,” Ford said. “I think there may have been five [new applications submitted] in the last two years. … We believe that there isn’t anything that’s pressing or anything that needs to be done right now to address the [current] circumstances.”
Ford acknowledged some of the concerns brought forth by the proponents of Measure A, also known as the Humboldt Cannabis Reform Initiative, which sought to restrict commercial cannabis cultivation through a host of strict rules. The ballot measure was rejected in a landslide vote.
“There were some comments that were made [regarding] the possibility of an [Ordinance] 3.0 … in terms of reducing the [permit] cap,” Ford said, adding that the board could refrain from any action on the item. “[I] just wanted to bring that up. Not that we’re looking to do that, but just in case the board is looking to pursue those [options].”
During public comment, more than a dozen local cannabis farmers urged the board to refrain from further action. Craig Johnson, owner of Alpenglow Farms, emphasized that most local farmers are “not thinking about future expansion.”
“We’re just trying to hold the baseline,” he said. “We’re being singled out. … If you’re going to have any of these types of requirements, remove ‘cannabis’ from the document and just make it a county-wide document. If you’re talking culverts, talk about culverts from the bay up into the mountains, every county road, but don’t talk about mine because mine are done.”
Ross Gordon, policy director for the Humboldt County Growers Alliance, credited Ford for providing an accurate picture of the state of the local cannabis industry but echoed the previous speaker’s request for equitable treatment.
“If we’re talking about assessing environmental impacts associated with cannabis, we should also assess [the] environmental impacts of all activities within the county, whether it’s land use activities, residential activities, industrial, commercial [or] agricultural,” he said. “It has been frustrating at times to be here and have continued conversations only about licensed cannabis cultivation when we know that there are a variety of things affecting our environment and all of those things need to be considered collectively.”
Scott Bauer, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, advocated for increased monitoring of local watersheds but acknowledged that the proliferation of new cannabis farms wasn’t really a present issue.
“I’ll be the first to admit it – I think the agencies and the county [hasn’t] done enough of that,” he said. “What I mean is looking at localized impacts. Let’s say Larabee Valley, which is filled with wells, right? We’re concerned about summer steelhead downstream and there are only about 100 left in the Van Duzen River. How are those wells drawing on those flows that … provide that cold water for steelhead? We should try and figure out those issues.”
Supervisor Michelle Bushnell said it was unfortunate that cannabis farmers felt singled out because “every industry is struggling in Humboldt County.”
“This conversation coming up again, targeting cultivation permitting again, it feels very attackative – if that’s the right word – to the cultivation community,” she said. “I hope that we maybe can do the monitoring that’s required and put this at rest for once and all and move forward. And hopefully, our cultivators that are remaining can be successful, because when they’re successful our county is successful and our community is successful.”
Bushnell noted that the number of farmers could drop off significantly in the next year if folks aren’t able to pay back Measure S taxes by March of 2025. “We have a lot of payment plans that are going on with Measure S,” she said. “If they don’t complete those [payments] then that’s going to be a revocation of their permit.”
After a bit of additional discussion among board members, Bushnell made a motion to receive and file the report and asked Ford to bring back more information in a year. The action was seconded by Supervisor Arroyo and approved in a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Mike Wilson absent.
###
Other notable bits from Tuesday’s meeting:
The board unanimously voted to revoke a conditional use permit for Hwy 36 Farms, LLC, a “nuisance” cannabis farm near Bridgeville that has been out of compliance with county and state rules for the last two years. During a site inspection in April 2022, county staff found litter throughout the property, cultivation occurring in unpermitted areas, and water use from an unknown source. The permit holder did not respond to the allegations during the public hearing.
The board also approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Humboldt County Economic Development Department and partner agencies for the new WindLINK program. The program is a partnership between the county, Redwood Region Economic Development Commission (RREDC), Redwood Coast Chamber Foundation, Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce, Northern California Small Business Development Center and NorCal APEX Accelerator. The new partnership aims to bolster economic development in the county, as it relates to the emerging offshore wind industry.
Press release from the District Attorney’s Office:
On March 29, 2024, a Humboldt County jury convicted 47 years-old
Samuel Williams of felonious criminal threats and brandishing a
firearm. During early morning hours of March 24, 2023, Williams made
an unannounced entry into the McKinleyville home of his estranged
wife wherein she and her male friend were located. Without
provocation, Williams threatened to kill the friend and pointed his
firearm at the unarmed man causing him to fear for his life.
Williams.
Yesterday, during
the sentencing hearing the Honorable Judge Timothy Canning placed
Williams on formal supervised probation for a period of 2 years and
ordered Williams to serve 90 days in jail for his crimes.
The case was
prosecuted by DDA Candace Myers with assistance from DA Investigator
Steve Dunn. Williams was represented by local attorney David Celli.
District Attorney
Stacey Eads extends her gratitude to the jurors for their time and
service.
If you visited a Planned Parenthood in the continental United States in the past few years then the company Near Intelligence, a data broker, probably knew it — and may have sold that information to anti-abortion activists. If you attended certain houses of worship or patronized particular pharmacies, the data broker known as Outlogic allegedly sold that information.
Near Intelligence filed for bankruptcy in December. Outlogic agreed to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commision to stop selling user location data, while insisting regulators had found “no misuse of any data.” Both were among nearly 90 companies on the latest version of the California data broker registry that self-reported selling data about where people are or have been.
For the first time this year California requires data brokers — companies that knowingly collect and sell consumer’s data to third parties — to report if they collect location data. New state transparency requirements that kicked in this year also revealed that roughly two dozen companies collect personal data about children and about a dozen collect reproductive health data about people who are pregnant.
Do data brokers somewhere have data about you? Almost certainly. Most everywhere you go on your digital journey will collect traces of information about you. If you’ve been on the internet in the past few years, you’ve probably seen a bunch of notices asking if it’s okay for the website you’re on to collect your “cookies” — information that allows the website to remember you, essentially. Some apps on your phone may track your location. It’s hard to say precisely what information about you is where because there are so many variables — your privacy settings, the sites you visit, what you buy and from whom, etc. — but data brokers are in the business of finding, collecting, and selling that data to other businesses.
Selling data about people is the cornerstone of the modern internet economy, powering targeted advertising based on insights gleaned from personal data. Media investment company GroupM forecast $258 billion in digital advertising revenue this year.
To give people visibility into who sells their personal data for profit, four years ago California started requiring data brokers to register once a year. Since then, a new registry has come out each year based on those submissions.
The latest registry debuted one month ago with more detailed information and is now maintained by a relatively new state agency. A law passed last fall introduces new consumer rights and more stringent requirements for brokers.
Here are some important things to know:
How can data brokers harm you or your loved ones?
Data brokers can sell data to bad actors ranging from scam artists to adversarial foreign governments. In testimony to a congressional committee one year ago, Georgetown Law Center associate professor Laura Moy said data brokers selling information to law enforcement agencies could amount to a violation of the Fourth Amendment right to live free from unreasonable search and seizure.
From Beijing to Brussels to Washington D.C. and U.S. state capitals, government regulators are creating registries and business reporting rules that aim to prevent privacy violations or harmful forms of artificial intelligence. Privacy advocates have urged the creation of a national data broker registry with the Federal Trade Commission for years, but no such registry exists yet.
Who protects my privacy rights?
California voters passed a ballot measure in 2020 that gives consumers the right to access information collected about them, delete or modify that information, or tell a broker they cannot sell or share that information. Consumers can initiate the process by sending an email to a point of contact listed on the registry website. Then they have to present a copy of their ID like a driver’s license to prove who they are. Consumers and people under 18 can also work with an authorized agent, somebody who makes data deletion requests on their behalf. Companies like Transcend and nonprofit organizations like Consumer Reports offer consumer data deletion services.
To enforce these rights, the ballot measure created the California Privacy Protection Agency and a five-member board to govern its activity.
Companies that buy, sell, or share the personal data of at least 100,000 Californians or get a majority of annual revenue from selling data are required to comply with the consumer privacy law.
What’s new?
The most recent changes to California’s data broker registry — which took effect in January — require brokers to disclose whether they sell data about kids, pregnant people, or anyone’s geolocation data.
But relatively soon — at the speed state governments operate — consumers should be able to delete data collected about them.
Right now, consumers must go to hundreds of data brokers one at a time if they want them to delete their data.
Last fall, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Delete Act giving consumers a way to delete data from all registered brokers by using a single tool or website.
Under the law — authored by state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park — the state’s privacy agency must launch a website by 2026 that allows Californinans to delete their data in 30 seconds or less. The Delete Act doubles the cost if data brokers fail to register to $200 a day as well as costs associated with action brought by the state attorney general. By 2028, audits must verify that data brokers are complying with the Delete Act.
The other major change is that the Delete Act requires brokers to delete any information they collect about a consumer, not just information shared directly from a consumer, closing what privacy advocates called a crucial loophole that existed in the right to delete granted to consumers under the California Consumer Privacy Act.
The law also shifts responsibility for maintaining the registry from the Department of Justice to the California Privacy Protection Agency. That means that power to determine which companies fail to register and comply with state privacy law or the Delete Act is decided by enforcement officers within that privacy agency.
And it’s up to the agency to decide whether companies should register as data brokers.
The enforcement division has received more than 1,200 complaints from July 2023 to February 2024, according to a staff update last month. The majority of those complaints concern the right to delete data collected about individuals.
Is California’s data broker registry comprehensive?
Since data brokers do not have a direct relationship with consumers, most people have never heard of companies that buy and sell data. But the registry is not comprehensive, not yet at least.
The registry that launched March 1 includes roughly 450 businesses and email points of contact. Brokers were required to register by Jan. 31, but in a meeting held last month, privacy protection agency attorney Liz Travis Allen warned that “If you look at the whole universe of every data broker, we don’t have that list. But that would be something we can enforce on, to figure out who isn’t registered and should be.”
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse head of privacy Emory Roane was a co-sponsor of the Delete Act. He said it’s “really cool” that the privacy protection agency data broker registry illuminates metrics that you couldn’t see before like the number of companies that track your location or collect data about kids and people who are pregnant, or that the credit score agency Experian collects all three. But he said the registry is clearly incomplete. The state of Vermont defines a data broker the same way as California, also maintains a data broker registry registry, and created its registry around the same time as California, but it lists 660 companies.
That discrepancy “suggests that there is a problem with non-registered data brokers,” he told CalMatters in an email. “As to how many brokers aren’t registered, well, that’s anyone’s guess. It could be dozens, hundreds, or even thousands.”
A January Consumer Reports study involving nearly 700 volunteers who shared the data Meta collects about them on Facebook and Instagram found that the average person is tracked by more than 2,220 companies.
How can I tell a data broker to delete my data?
Each company maintains its own privacy policy, but deleting the data it collects on you can be as simple as sending an email to the broker, whose contact email is listed on the registry. California law requires the broker to respond within 90 days.
You can also use third parties tools like the Permission Slip app to tell data brokers to delete your data.
Brokers must detail how you can delete or modify data in a privacy policy listed on their website. If a business fails to act in those 90 days, you can file a complaint with California’s privacy protection agency.
To quickly view the complete list of companies that sell kids data, reproductive health data, or geolocation data, toggle the arrow buttons at the top of the screen on California’s online registry site.
How do I delete data collected about my kid?
A parent or guardian who wishes to make a deletion request on a child’s behalf may do so by following the same steps necessary for any other Californian, but a business may require them to verify their identity with a government-issued ID card or phone or video call with a trained professional.
What’s next in California?
The state’s privacy protection agency is already developing a single-click data deletion option. The enforcement division will contact companies they believe should be part of the registry or face fines, fees, or legal action.
How aggressive will California’s consumer privacy agency really be? One test is how frequently it issues fines and fees for brokers who fail to register. Privacy protection agency deputy director of external affairs Megan White wouldn’t say when enforcement officers will contact companies that they determined must register as data brokers and are in violation of the law.
Roane said he hopes for, and expects, “eager enforcers more vigilantly holding non-registering and non-conforming data brokers to account.”
In July, California will begin requiring data brokers to publicly report on their own websites the number of requests they receive to delete, modify, or share what data they collected about individuals, and the median amount of time it takes to fulfill those requests.
Coroners determined Joanna Lewis died by suicide in 2011. Her family members believe she was killed, and are advocating for a domestic violence bill in the California Legislature. This is her headstone at Vacaville-Elmira Cemetery on April 24, 2024. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters.
Joanna Lewis’s family never believed she took her own life.
In 2011, investigators found her hanging from a bath robe’s belt inside a closet. The Solano County Cororner’s Office declared her death a suicide. But Lewis, 36, had previously sought restraining orders against her husband, Vacaville pastor Mark Lewis, accusing him of domestic violence.
Four years after her death, Mark Lewis was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading no contest to hiring three people to throw a molotov cocktail through the window of his ex-girlfriend’s Vacaville house. He had started dating that woman within days of his wife’s death, she told ABC News.
Lewis has never faced charges in Joanna Lewis’ death, although deputies have opened the case twice. This week, a Solano County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told CalMatters that the agency has reopened the investigation into Joanna Lewis’s death for a third time.
The review comes as California lawmakers consider a bill that would give the extended families of domestic violence victims the right to request additional scrutiny of death investigations they deem suspicious as well as provide additional training for law enforcement to spot cover-ups of domestic violence murders. Its supporters are citing Joanna Lewis’s death as they advocate for the bill.
Senate Bill 989’s lead author is Sen. Angelique Ashby, a former Sacramento city councilmember who knows Lewis’s brother, Sacramento Fire Capt. Joseph Hunter. He testified beside Ashby last week before the Senate Public Safety Committee and again on Tuesday before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee. The bill passed both committees unanimously.As he testified, he referred to his sister by her maiden name, which her family has used since her death.
“This bill will bring justice to Joanna Hunter and so many other victims like her,” Hunter told lawmakers.
The bill comes amid international calls for police to take a dead woman’s history with a domestic abuser into account before declaring her death a suicide or an accident, citing examples of abusers covering up their crimes. Law enforcement organizations, however, argue that their investigators are already trained to spot death scenes that are staged to not look like a murder.
In an interview with CalMatters Tuesday, Ashby said there could be as many as 800 to 1,200 “hidden homicides” in the U.S. each year, citing estimates from the bill’s sponsor, Alliance for HOPE International, an advocacy group for victims of domestic violence. Ashby said that too often, the victim’s abuser is their spouse who has the ability to block family members from pushing investigators to dig deeper, something the family alleges happened after Joanna Lewis’s death.
“If a firefighter brother can’t get a secondary autopsy,” Ashby said, “we clearly need a legal change.”
Lewis is no longer listed as a state prison inmate. CalMatters’ attempted to reach him through phone numbers and an email address found in public records. The numbers were disconnected, and the email account was disabled. Lewis’ attorney from his 2015 criminal case wasn’t listed on the Solano County Superior Court’s online case search.
The Solano County officials have conducted at least two other reviews of the case, once in 2014 and again in 2019, a sheriff’s spokesman told CalMatters. Lewis has not been charged with a crime related to his wife’s 2011 death. Solano County court records show that he was convicted by plea agreement of felony domestic violence in 1997. The records don’t say who his victim was.
Who would get domestic violence records?
Ashby’s bill would give parents, siblings or the domestic violence victim’s children the right to obtain photos taken during a coroner’s investigation into a death declared a suicide, so that they can have them for an independent review of the case.
Autopsy reports are generally public records, but photographs taken during a death investigation can only be given out to a victim’s “legal heir or their representative in connection with a potential or pending civil action relating to the decedent’s death,” according to the bill’s analysis.
“Right now, only an heir – a legal heir – has access to those records,” Casey Gwinn, the president of Alliance for HOPE International, told lawmakers. “And in the cases of domestic violence homicide, the legal heir may actually be the killer. We believe family members should have the same access to records.”
California’s District Attorneys Association supports Ashby’s bill, which has Sen. Susan Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, as a coauthor. Before becoming a senator, Rubio accused her then-husband, Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, of domestic violence in 2016, as he was serving his final term. He denied the allegations.
California police oppose death records bill
But some law enforcement groups argue the training and other investigative requirements under Rubio’s and Ashby’s bill are redundant. Investigators, they say, are already trained to look for signs of hidden foul play at what’s known as an “unattended death,” when someone dies outside of a medical setting.“It has been our experience that these staged crimes are quickly recognized by our investigators out in the field due to our current policies and procedures that we have in place,” Lt. Julio De Leon of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office told the judiciary committee on Tuesday. “And we investigate all unattended deaths out in the field. All of them.”The bill also gives family members the right to request another law enforcement agency to review a death investigation officially deemed a suicide or an accident if there is a documented history of domestic violence. If the local cops won’t take up the review, the family may seek a review of the case from a federally-authorized “public or private nonprofit agency” that trains law enforcement on domestic violence investigations, according to the bill analysis.
De Leon said the bill doesn’t say which agency would pay for the additional review or provide a means to cover the costs.
“Why should residents of a particular city fund and pay and dedicate officers to investigate a crime that was potentially committed outside of their jurisdiction?” he asked.
Ashby brushed off concerns over unintended costs, saying nonprofit domestic violence organizations are willing to conduct death investigation reviews for families for free.
“The members of Joanna Hunter’s family would disagree that more cannot be done to protect families,” she said. “They would be joined by thousands of other families whose loved ones did not receive justice in death.”
