In the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown Jr. by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in August, some St. Louis area lawmakers have pre-filed bills designed to reform law enforcement training and evaluation, as well as define the use of lethal force and oversight of officers.
At this stage in the legislative process, bills can be pre-filed or withdrawn from the pre-filed list at any time before Jan. 6. The pre-filing period opened Dec. 1.
The next session of the Missouri legislature - the first regular session of the 98th General Assembly - opens at noon on Jan. 7.
Community-relations training
In the House, Reps. Rochelle Walton Gray, D-Black Jack, and Sharon Pace, D-St. Louis, have pre-filed bills requiring certification and training of law enforcement officers in community relations, particularly when those officers are serving racially diverse communities.
Pre-filed by Pace, HB 38 establishes that all law enforcement officers "shall attend a training course in diversity and sensitivity, and a course that teaches tactics and techniques to handle situations of unrest or peaceful demonstrations."
Pre-filed by Walton Gray, HB 56 establishes a "cultural competency" test for officers. The Peace Officers Standards and Training commission would create the test. If an officer failed the test, he or she would have to attend a separate POST-approved training on "cultural diversity competency" before taking the test over again until a passing score is achieved.
The most comprehensive of the three bills is HB 51, sponsored by Walton Gray. The bill proposes a "Community Relations Training Program for Peace Officers" to train law enforcement officers in open avenues of communication between communities and police departments. It would also include training in "diversity, sensitivity and cultural competency."
New officers would attend the training when hired and then every three years. Existing officers would attend once every three years. The training would be administered by an experienced and actively engaged community liaison law enforcement officer at a state-licensed training center. Each center would develop curriculum for the training.
The officer administering the training at each center must be a member of a "Community Relations Division," also created by HB 51.
The Community Relations Division's main objectives would be to gauge public satisfaction throughout the state with law enforcement officers' performance, act as a channel of communication between community activists and leaders and law enforcement agencies, and respond to incidents that involved officer deaths or injuries or clashes between officers and the public.
The two bills from Walton Gray address the same subject in slightly different ways. The goal of both initiatives is to address day-to-day problems in communities with law enforcement performance, she said.
Community relations training would "go both ways," she said, meaning officers and community members or leaders would be engaged in dialogue throughout the process. A cultural competency exam would be exclusively for officers, she said.
Walton Gray said the community relations training proposal has support for passage, while the cultural competency exam bill "will take some more vetting."
Psychological evaluations
Reps. Walton Gray and Pace have also each proposed separate bills mandating psychological evaluations of law enforcement officers.
Pace's proposal, HB 40, sets up regular psychological evaluations of officers every three years of service. The cost of these evaluations would be borne by the officers.
Walton Gray's HB 59 would require a law enforcement officer applicant to disclose whether he or she has had any "complaints, disciplinary actions or internal investigations" while employed with another law enforcement agency.
If the applicant does have such incidents on his or her employment record, then he or she would be required to have a psychological evaluation before being hired to determine whether "he or she can effectively work in the field of law enforcement."
An applicant who passes the evaluation would receive training to address the root issue underlying the incidents on the record. No mention of who bears the cost is mentioned in the pre-filed bill's text.
Walton Gray said she had not received feedback from any law enforcement agencies or officers on her pre-filed legislation.
Criminal justice curriculum in schools
Walton Gray has also pre-filed HB 54, which seeks to allow public schools teaching grades seven through 12 to incorporate information about the way local, state and national criminal justice systems work, as well as career opportunities within law enforcement.
This teaching, according to the bill, could be incorporated into an existing political science or other curriculum. A school could also seek suggestions about its curriculum from local law enforcement.
A criminal justice curriculum does not need to be required, Walton Gray said, but she would at least like to see it as an elective available to everyone.
Walton Gray said she had not yet received feedback on her proposal from teachers, administrators or students.
Use of lethal force
In the Senate, Sens. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, and Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, have each pre-filed separate bills regarding the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers. Both bills, SB 21 and 42, seek to at least clarify, if not limit, when officers are justified in the use of lethal force.
Nasheed's bill, SB 42, would create a tight standard for the justification of lethal force. An officer would be justified in shooting a suspect if all other means of arrest had been exhausted or were unavailable, the officer had warned the suspect, and the officer reasonably believed that the suspect was attempting to escape and possessed a deadly weapon.
On top of this, any officer who fired upon an unarmed person positioned 20 feet or more away from the officer would be immediately suspended from duty without pay until after an investigation.
Chappelle-Nadal's bill, SB 21, proposes that a law enforcement officer may use deadly force "only when the officer reasonably believes the suspect poses a clear danger to the officer or any other person."
The bill also mandates that whenever an officer is involved in the death or injury of a person, the attorney general must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the case.
The current standard for the justification of lethal force by police is that an officer may use deadly force - fire a weapon - when he or she reasonably believes that the use of force is necessary for arrest and the suspect has committed or attempted to commit a felony, is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon, or may otherwise be endangering the life or health of another person.