California cops can no longer conceal police killings while interrogating loved ones for dirt

A new California law will effectively ban a deceptive policing tactic used for years against the families of people killed by police and popularized by the nation’s largest developer of law enforcement policy manuals. 

The legislation, signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, will require investigators for police agencies and prosecutors’ offices to tell the families of people seriously injured or killed by police what has happened to their loved one before questioning them. 

Investigators will also be barred from lying to families or pressuring them into consenting to interviews, and will be required to allow the families to bring a support person to interviews.

All California police agencies and prosecutors will be required to incorporate the new restrictions into their department policies by January 2027. 

The law will not require investigators to take the same steps in circumstances where the family member is under arrest or the delay could result in the destruction of evidence.

State Assembly member Ash Kalra, who represents the city of San Jose, co-authored the new law and has been pushing for a version of the legislation for two years. He said he hoped the new law would signal the need for law enforcement officers to respect the families of people who have died during police encounters. 

“I think it’s time for law enforcement to relearn their processes and create a new process that’s respectful of all life and allows them to build more trust with their community,” Kalra said. “ It’s really about giving justice to these families, but more immediately, giving them the truth.”

Kalra added that he would continue to monitor the rollout of the law and would consider introducing new legislation if law enforcement agencies resisted its implementation.  

The legislation comes in response to a 2023 investigation by Reveal and the Los Angeles Times, which found that investigators routinely withheld death notifications from families while they collected disparaging background information about people killed by officers.

The reporting confirmed 20 instances of investigators across the state using the tactic in the immediate aftermath of police shootings and in-custody deaths in order to collect information about the deceased, such as their mental health history, drug use or family feuds.

In some cases, law enforcement agencies then used the information to justify their officers’ actions or argue for lower settlements in lawsuits by portraying the deceased as mentally disturbed, a deadbeat parent or a liability to their family.

“I’m proud of all the families, and even the assembly and senate and the governor, for having the courage to make this law,” said Jim Showman, who has been campaigning for the new law for two years. “It’s good to know that you can push things through and make change for the better.”

In the moments after a San Jose police officer shot his 19-year-old daughter, Diana, officers rushed Showman to a police station, where detectives isolated him from his ex-wife and questioned him in an interrogation room for 27 minutes before revealing that Diana had died. 

The department’s attorneys later used the information from the interview to push for a zero-dollar settlement in the case, he and his attorney, Jaime Leaños, said.

The tactic was popularized in a 2019 webinar hosted by Lexipol, a company that develops policy manuals for thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country, including nearly all of California’s police departments. 

In the webinar, Lexipol co-founder Bruce Praet encouraged police officers to rush to the families of people killed by officers and question them about the person’s mental health, drug use and family conflicts. 

“The grapevine has gotten lightning fast,” Praet said in the webinar. “Before the dust settles, I want you sending a uniform[ed officer], detective—I don’t care—somebody out there to their friends and family to find out what they’ve been up to.” 

Praet then pantomimed an interaction between an officer and a confused mother, who tells the officer about her son’s drug use and family problems before the officer reveals he is dead. Shocked, the mother reverses course, calling her son an “Eagle Scout” before Praet makes a gameshow buzzer sound.

“Sorry lady, you’re married to that evasive concept called the truth,” he said in the video. Lexipol removed the webinar from its website in 2022. 

In an email, Praet declined to comment on the new law or his advice, saying he preferred to “​​allow the legislators to comment on their legislation.”

Silicon Valley DeBug, a San Jose advocacy group comprised of families who have lost loved ones to police violence, teamed up with Kalra in 2023 to author the first version of the bill, which failed to clear the state Senate last year. 

The families didn’t give up. Their coalition grew to include dozens of people from across the state. Members campaigned for the bill at the Capitol and visited dozens of legislators to share their stories of being tricked or pressured into giving interviews to investigators after their loved ones were killed. 

Kalra introduced an overhauled version of the bill this spring, which passed the senate in September.

Among the families who advocated for the new law was DeAnna Sullivan, whose son, David, was fatally shot by Buena Park police officers in 2019 after the 19-year-old stole merchandise and a car from a gas station where he worked while in the midst of a mental health crisis. 

After the shooting, Sullivan said Orange County DA investigators questioned her and her daughter about David’s mental health, his struggle to lose weight and his decision to join the military.  

When she and her family sued the Buena Park Police Department for the wrongful death of her son, Praet, who defended the department in the lawsuit, used the information that she gave investigators to argue that the shooting was justified. 

Praet paired the background information with the discovery of apparent suicide notes among David’s belongings after the shooting to argue that he had committed “suicide by cop,” which Sullivan denies. 

Praet declined to comment on the case, but directed Mother Jones to court records detailing the apparent suicide notes.

A former law enforcement officer and long-time defense attorney known for defending police agencies in civil lawsuits, Praet has also spent years training officers across California. His advice has long centered on helping departments avoid or beat civil rights lawsuits. 

Since Praet co-founded it in 2003, Lexipol has grown into the nation’s largest private developer of policies for police agencies.  The company has fallen under scrutiny in the past for writing what some critics allege are vaguely-written, cookie-cutter policies that make it difficult to hold officers accountable.

In a series of webinars that were on the company’s website until early 2022, he encouraged officers to describe people experiencing mental health crises as being on drugs in their police reports so that if they sued, Praet said, future jurors would be less likely to sympathize with “druggies.”

He also told police to encourage wounded suspects to pose and smile in evidence photos as a method for preemptively undermining the suspect’s potential future lawsuits. 

After reporting by Reveal and the Los Angeles Times exposed that advice, Lexipol distanced itself from its co-founder and apologized for Praet’s comments. 

Lexipol representatives did not respond to requests for comment for this story. 

Because Lexipol writes the policy manuals for the vast majority of California law enforcement agencies and updates many of those policies when relevant new laws are passed, the company will likely be responsible for updating those policies and effectively banning the tactic its co-founder helped popularize. 

“That is irony, isn’t it?” Jim Showman said.

Showman added that it also meant the families would need to remain vigilant as Lexipol began updating police policies to reflect the new law. 

“I guess the fight’s not over,” he said. “We’ve gotta hold their feet to the fire to make sure they make policy with the spirit of the law.”