The limits of Harris’s approach are likewise evident in her actions on police shootings. She did
back a bill that required reports on officer-involved shootings to be posted publicly online and mandated bias training and that justice department agents
wear body cameras. But as district attorney, she
refused to hand over the names of police officers whose testimonies had led to convictions despite the officers’ arrest records and histories of misconduct. As attorney general, she also
opposed instituting police body cameras statewide and stood against a bill requiring her office to investigate fatal police shootings.
Members of California’s Legislative Black Caucus (who are fellow Democrats)
criticized her over the latter, as did Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter activist and professor of pan-African studies, who commented: “This is not the time for timidity. … Martin Luther King said if you tell black people to wait, that means never.”
These are just a few of a
large group of civil rights advocates and activists who criticized her on the matter, including San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi and Phelicia Jones, an organizer with the Justice for Mario Woods Coalition and a former Harris supporter, who wondered “how many more people need to die” before Harris stepped in, and accused her of “turn[ing] your back on the people who got you to where you are.” Although Harris’s defenders have singled out a small number of her critics who are white,
complaining that it’s “the same three people” criticizing of her, it’s not hard to find a range of people who criticize her record, many of whom are people of color.
In fact, despite being well-placed to reshape California’s criminal justice system, Harris has something of a reputation in the state as a marginal figure on the issue. As the
Orange County Register put it, she was viewed by some as a “too-cautious and often calculating politician” who has avoided hot-button issues.
I offer substance to those that I can have a genuine discourse with. Not to clowns who can't construct arguments without a twitter thread to borrow the ideas from.
