Access to police records

The Orange County Register has an editorial today concerning a bill that has passed the California Senate that would open police disciplinary records to public scrutiny. The bill is opposed by unions representing California public safety officers. The Register rightly points out that police exercise the ultimate power of government (the right to detain people) and their actions should be open to public scrutiny. The argument is especially convincing in view of two police killings in Orange County during the past year or so. A young woman in a park was killed by Huntington Beach police and a married couple staying at a luxury hotel were killed by Laguna Beach police. In both cases, the victims were armed (the Huntington Beach woman had a knife and the Laguna Beach couple had a gun). It isn't clear whether police were threatened in either case. Both cases have been investigated but the results of the investigations haven't been published.