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AB 481 & MEUP

AB 481 was signed into law on Sept. 30 , 2021.  You can read the full-text of the bill here.  But the gist is that it ensures public transparency and accountability in whether and how military equipment is funded, acquired or used.  This is great stuff!  We already know of the vast harm that militarization of police does to communities and especially to communities of color.  You can read more info about that here:

So AB 481 is a step in the right direction!  It mandates that each Police Department in CA must create and get approval on a Military Equipment Use Policy (MEUP) by it's governing body (in our case, City Council).    You can get a much more in-depth look at AB 481 and what it requires from the PD by taking a look at our video.

 

Here's a timeline of our work on MEUP:

  1. The initial version of the MEUP proposed by the Los Altos PD under Chief Andy Galea was this: Policy 709

  2. LARE had a few issues with this version, and we sent a letter of concern to City council stating that we did not believe that the MEUP met AB 481's requirement to "safeguard the public's welfare, safety, civil rights, and civil liberties". 

    1. Our main issue was that each authorized use case for a piece of military equipment had the wording "may include, but not limited to", which effectively authorized all use cases without limitation for any piece of military equipment.  You can read more about how loopholes such as this enable police violence here.

    2. Our other main issue was that there was no indication of who can investigate violations of this policy and the repercussions for any violations found.  This is also explicitly required by AB 481

    3. Another smaller issue was that City Council needed to be explicitly stated as the governing body for this policy

  3. Based on our findings and letter, we were able to get approval of the policy postponed until it could be further improved.​

  4. We then worked collaboratively with the Los Altos Police Department and provided specific redlines that PD felt were appropriate to include.

  5. In the meantime, Chief Averiett was confirmed as our new Police Chief and started her role on Aug. 1, 2022.  

  6. The PD released their updated MEUP draft and submitted it for discussion during the 9/20/22 City Council meeting.  This version is available here (go to page 2614):  

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