148 Officers Sustained for Bias. Only 12% Lost Their Jobs.
An investigation by The California Newsroom and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program identified 148 California law enforcement officers who engaged in explicitly biased conduct between 2014 and 2024. The officers used racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs, mocked transgender people, made violent comments about Black people, and demeaned members of the public, co-workers, and incarcerated people. Their agencies sustained misconduct findings. Then most kept their jobs anyway.
12% of the 148 officers were fired because of their biased conduct, per The California Newsroom and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, June 2026
More than 40% of those officers still work in California law enforcement, excluding corrections. The most common consequences were letters of reprimand or mandatory training.
One Officer Threatened Transgender People. He Got Two More Police Jobs.
Rafael Silva, then an officer with the Delano Police Department in California’s Central Valley, was identified by the FBI in April 2023 after posting violent threats against transgender people on TikTok under a pseudonym. The FBI assessed the comments as imminently dangerous. One post read: “You ain’t safe.
We finna change your pronouns soon. Was/were.” Another referenced tracking people down with an AR-15.
“The only power you’ll see is the one from a barrel and a 9mm.”
Rafael Silva, Delano Police Department officer, TikTok post reviewed by FBI, April 2023
Silva was not fired. After leaving Delano, he went on to work for police departments in Avenal and Wasco.
California’s Decertification System Leaves Discipline to Local Agencies
The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) holds the authority to decertify officers and bar them from working in California law enforcement. But POST does not investigate individual misconduct. That responsibility falls to individual agencies and local oversight boards, creating a fragmented system where officers disciplined at one department can transfer to another.
The investigation drew from thousands of pages of internal affairs investigations, disciplinary records, and court filings obtained from nearly 500 law enforcement and oversight agencies. That breadth makes the 12% firing rate more significant: it holds across departments of different sizes and regions.
California passed Senate Bill 2 in 2021, which gave POST expanded decertification authority. The data covering 2014 to 2024 shows the gap between what the law allows and what agencies actually do.
What You Can Do Now
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Contact your California State Assembly member and State Senator by calling the Capitol switchboard at (916) 319-2856 (Assembly) or (916) 651-4040 (Senate). Ask them to require POST to proactively review all sustained bias findings, not wait for agency referrals.
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Submit public comment to California POST. POST holds public meetings and accepts written input at post.ca.gov. Ask the Commission to publish quarterly decertification data broken down by bias category, including anti-LGBTQ conduct.
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Contact your city council or county board of supervisors and ask them to require automatic POST notification whenever an officer receives a sustained bias finding. Local agencies control discipline; local officials can mandate disclosure.
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Find your local police oversight board at the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (nacole.org/chapters). Ask whether your board has reviewed bias discipline records and whether anti-LGBTQ misconduct is tracked separately from other categories.
Sources
CalMatters: California Agencies Disciplined Officers for Biased Conduct, but They Rarely Lost Their Jobs California POST: Officer Decertification Authority Under Senate Bill 2 KQED: Investigative Reporting Program on California Police Bias Records UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program: California Law Enforcement Bias Investigation California Legislative Information: Senate Bill 2, Police Accountability Act, 2021