Correspondence - #20 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• "Contracting with Lexipol removes community involvement in Santa Ana Police Department policies."—FACT Lexipol has a track record of diminishing community involvement in various cities throughout the state. For instance, in Berkeley, the City Council replaced decades of general orders that were jointly developed alongside the City of Berkeley's Police Oversight Commission with Lexipol's boilerplate standards.' Similar situations have arisen in other cities, where Lexipol has resisted implementing AB 392, a new law that raises the standard for police use of deadly force from "reasonable" to "necessary," necessitating the intervention of community activists to get local law enforcement to comply with the law. For example: • Pacifica Social Justice successfully urged its city leaders to discontinue the use of Lexipol's materials, arguing that "Lexipol's attempts to obscure the legal significance of the bill undermine" the purpose of AB 392, and noted that "Lexipol ensures that your officers act on outdated standards and your use of force review is inconsistent with the law" and advocated for changes in the police department's use-of-force policy to align with AB 392. See their full letter. • In Santa Ana, Chispa and the ACLU SoCal pressed the City to follow suit. After reviewing Lexipol's use-of-force policy, Santa Ana's city attorney notified Lexipol of the policy's legal deficiencies and its noncompliance with AB 392. See letter • In San Luis Obispo, members of Bend the Arc - Jewish Action raised concerns about Lexipol's use-of-force policy, which failed to align with state law by continuing to use the term "reasonable" instead of "necessary" force. In response, the city revised its use-of-force policy.' • "Lexipol policies cost the city of Santa Ana millions of dollars in lawsuits. "- POTENTIALLY FACT Lexipol advertises its policies' primary utility as preventing costly litigation. Lexipol has not yet lived up to this promise, and there is no reason to believe that it will in the future. Indeed, in order to comply with AB 392, Santa Ana had to abandon Lexipol's policy, which would have exposed the City to liability under state law. Santa Ana thereby narrowly avoided Pomona's fate: the City was recently sued by ACLU SoCal after they implemented a Lexipol unlawful use of force policy for the Pomona Police Department, which failed to comply with AB 392's mandates.' 'Morris, Scott,Police Policy For Sale,The Appeal(Feb. 13,2019), https://theappeal.org/lexipol-police-policy-company/ 'Axelroth,Elie,et. al.,Use of Force:Making Our Community Safer One Step At a Time,New Times(May 5, 2022),https://www.newtimesslo.com/opinion/use-of-force-12447263 ' Speri,Alice,Private Company Moves To Profit From New York's Police Reforms,The Intercept(August 9,2020), https://theintercept.com/2020/08/09/new-york-police-reform-lexipol/ 2