Grand Juries and Police Shootings

The police have a dangerous job. And when they kill a suspect, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s rare that officers are prosecuted for killing or harming a suspect. Just yesterday, Los Angeles’ district attorney refused to indict three officers involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man who lead them on a high speed chase. And of course there’s Ferguson and Staten Island: no indictments in those cases either. In those two, it was a grand jury’s decision not to indict. Now, California state senator Holly Mitchell has proposed a new law that would ban grand juries from hearing cases against officers accused of using excessive force. We hear from Mitchell and others with different takes on the issue.