Opening a new front in the movement to restrict law enforcement activities, California is considering legislation that would bar the deployment of K-9 units in certain confrontational situations. 

The bill would “prohibit the use of an unleashed police canine by law enforcement to apprehend a person,” Assembly Bill 742 states. It would also ban “any use of a police canine for crowd control.” The legislation would still permit the use of canines for search and rescue, drug searches, and bomb sniffing. 

At a press conference, the bill’s author, Assemblyman Corey Jackson, highlighted the disproportionate use of canines on Black Californians. Mr. Jackson called the use of police dogs “vicious and unforgiving,” adding that they have “institutionalized and created generational trauma in the Black community for centuries.”

“From the brutal attempts to quell the Civil Rights movement, Black Lives Matter protests, and their day-to-day use in law enforcement, police canines remain a gross misuse of force, victimizing Black and brown people disproportionately,” Mr. Jackson said. 

According to a report from the California Department of Justice, injuries caused by police canines in 2021 accounted for 12 percent of total injuries that occurred during interactions with law enforcement. More than 60 percent of those injured in canine encounters were Black or Latino. 

The bill has been criticized as restricting useful police tactics by law enforcement officials and state Republicans. 

“The number of dogs that are on the street reduce the number of assaults on officers and the number of officer-involved shootings,” a retired canine handler, Bob Eden, told KTVU, the Fox News affiliate at San Francisco. Mr. Eden added that canines “would also probably save the life of a number of suspects that otherwise would have been on the receiving end of gunfire.” 

Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a Republican who is a former police officer, told ABC 10 that “canines have a very unique function in that they’re there to provide another less lethal use of force when you have a resistant or combative suspect, or circumstances that require a less lethal intervention.”

California’s crime rate has risen in recent years, with the most recent data showing an 8.9 percent increase in aggravated assault, a 7.7 percent increase in homicide, and a 7.9 percent increase in rapes. California Republicans are seeking to re-impose stricter criminal penalties for these crimes as Democrats move forward with the new K-9 unit legislation.