San Francisco lawmaker introduces 'CAREN Act' that punishes racist 911 callers
A San Francisco lawmaker introduced a new of legislation that aims to punish false racist 911 calls.
According to a press release published on July 7 by San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton, the Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies (CAREN) Act would make it illegal for someone to ““fabricate false racially biased emergency reports.”
“Racist 911 calls are unacceptable that’s why I’m introducing the CAREN Act at today’s SF Board of Supervisors meeting. This is the CAREN we need,” Walton said in a Tweet.
Racist 911 calls are unacceptable that's why I'm introducing the CAREN Act at today’s SF Board of Supervisors meeting. This is the CAREN we need. Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies. #CARENact #sanfrancisco
— Shamann Walton (@shamannwalton) July 7, 2020
While filing a false report is already a criminal charge, the CAREN Act will specifically make it unlawful to file a report based on a person’s race or ethnicity.
Walton’s chief of staff Natalie Gee told Forbes that the bill would allow the person who had been falsely accused to sue the caller in civil court.
There has been increasing attention put on instances of people — notably white women penned as “Karens” — threatening to call the police on Black people under false pretenses. In May, Amy Cooper was recorded calling New York police on a Black man and falsely claiming she was being threatened when he asked her to put a leash on her dog. She has been charged with a misdemeanor for reporting a false incident.
A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stencilling a #BLM chalk message on my own front retaining wall. “Karen” lies and says she knows that I don’t live in my own house, because she knows the person who lives here. #blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/rOpHvKVwgP
— Jaimetoons (@jaimetoons) June 12, 2020
In San Francisco, a white woman was filmed calling the police on a person of colour who wrote “Black Lives Matter” in chalk in front of their own house.
Walton also announced he would be backing California politician Rob Bonta’s statewide bill that seeks to make racially profiled 911 calls a hate crime. In a statement, Bonta says the bill is intended to “prevent the weaponization of our law enforcement against communities of color.”