This is the first of a two-part series.
In May of 2020, 23-year-old Amaurie Johnson was waiting for some friends outside of an apartment building in La Mesa when officer Matthew Dages started questioning him.
This was just two days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And what happened next would become a local flashpoint in the broader reckoning over racial justice.
Johnson, who is Black, answered the officer’s questions. And then Dages, who is white, grabbed Johnson’s shirt.
The exchange was captured on the officer’s body camera.
“Stop touching me, bro,” Johnson said.
As the exchange unfolded, Dages pushed Johnson onto a concrete bench multiple times before arresting him.
A video of Johnson's arrest went viral. Days later, La Mesa was engulfed in protests that turned into riots.
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Johnson was never charged.
Dages, meanwhile, was fired after an administrative investigation found he made false statements in a police report. He claimed Johnson was smoking in a nonsmoking area and took a fighting stance toward the officer.
In years past, Dages might have been able to leave La Mesa and find another job in a police department elsewhere in the state. Such scenarios happened enough over the years that they entered the police reform lexicon — advocates call it the "wandering officer" phenomenon.
But under a state law passed in 2021, Dages lost his certification for good — meaning he can't be an officer anywhere in California. In the last two years, the state has decertified nearly 300 officers for excessive use of force, dishonesty, sexual assault and other violations. That includes 20 officers in San Diego County who lost their badges.
“I'm happy at the end result of him not being an officer anymore,” Johnson said about Dages. “Knowing my experience with him, he was just going to go ahead and do the same thing to somebody else.”
Dages did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The accountability at the heart of this recent law is happening, albeit slowly. The decision as to whether an officer should lose their badge rests with the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
POST has received tens of thousands of officer misconduct reports since 2023. The majority of these cases remain open, as the agency struggles to hire investigators.
The result could mean justice delayed — or perhaps justice expired. The commission has three years to take action after receiving a case before the statute of limitations runs out. If POST can’t catch up on its workload, some bad officers might escape scrutiny and remain on the force.
That’s alarming for police accountability advocates.
Mitchelle Woodson, legal director for San Diego-based Pillars of the Community, said the state’s decertification system is only meaningful if the state follows through on all complaints.
“I think any step towards holding those bad actors accountable is progress and a success,” she said. “But I do know that there is so much more that needs to be done.”
Response to a reckoning
Early this decade, as racial justice protests roiled cities across the country, California lawmakers vowed to strengthen police accountability.
The Legislature passed bills requiring departments to publicly release personnel files on officers who commit misconduct; instructed California’s Attorney General to investigate officer shootings of unarmed civilians; and banned the controversial carotid restraint, which restricts circulation to the brain.
In 2021, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2, which established a system to revoke an officer’s certification for serious misconduct. Most other states already had similar systems in place.
“There's bad doctors, there's bad teachers, there's bad elected officials,” said Steven Bradford, the former state senator who authored the legislation. “We have to accept the fact that there are bad police officers.”
State leaders framed it as a victory for racial justice.
“Today marks another step toward healing and justice for all,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom when he signed the bill. “Too many lives have been lost due to racial profiling and excessive use of force. We cannot change what is past, but we can build accountability.”
The law established nine categories of serious misconduct that would lead to decertifications. They include: dishonesty, abuse of power, sexual assault, failure to cooperate with an investigation and demonstrating bias. An officer who committed a felony or certain misdemeanors would also lose their badge for good.
Years after its passage, the legislation still faces scrutiny from law enforcement.
Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, said his group has pushed for clearer definitions of serious misconduct and changes to the POST advisory board that handles decertification decisions.
“We cannot allow officers who commit serious misconduct to continue as members of the law enforcement profession,” Marvel said in an emailed statement. “However, this legislation needed significantly more thought and consideration before implementation.”
The Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of San Diego County declined to comment.
The California Peace Officers' Association and San Diego Police Officers Association did not respond to a request for comment.
Hundreds of officers decertified
Lawmakers gave POST a year to set up the state’s decertification system, including hiring staff and establishing investigation procedures. From the start, the commission was playing catch-up.
That’s because, under SB 2, some decertification would apply retroactively. That includes officers who committed felonies, qualifying misdemeanors and certain kinds of misconduct — specifically dishonesty, sexual assault and use of deadly force.
So far, POST has received over 35,000 cases for review. About half of them involve incidents dating before 2023.
The reports include allegations against nearly 20,000 current or former officers who worked for big cities, small towns, universities and a slew of government agencies.
POST has completed investigations into more than 13,000 cases, with nearly 300 resulting in decertifications. Dozens of them — including Dages, the former La Mesa police officer — voluntarily surrendered their badges.
Another 140 have had their certifications suspended while POST investigates.
Examples of decertified officers in San Diego County
- Cesar Alcantara, a former San Diego police officer who faked his own suicide and solicited sex workers while on duty, as inewsource and KPBS previously reported. POST decertified Alcantara for dishonesty and failure to cooperate during a misconduct investigation.
- Marco Garmo, a former San Diego County Sheriff’s captain who operated as an unlicensed firearm dealer for roughly six years. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to illegally purchasing nearly 150 firearms and reselling about 100 of them. Garmo was decertified due to his conviction.
- Anthony Hair, a former San Diego Police officer who locked himself in the back of his squad car with a woman he had arrested for an outstanding warrant. Hair’s body-worn camera recorded them having a sexually suggestive conversation as he drove her to a detention center. Hair later pulled over, turned off the camera and got in the back of the cruiser with the woman. Over an hour later, after realizing he locked himself in, he called a supervisor to unlock the door. Hair resigned the day before a scheduled administrative interrogation.
- Brannon Adkins, a former Oceanside police officer who committed multiple acts of dishonesty while on duty. According to a POST investigation, Adkins falsely claimed he was the victim of vehicular assault when he was driving his patrol car. The investigation also found Adkins included false information in arrest reports after detaining several people for methamphetamine use.
Other decertifications in San Diego County involved possession of child pornography, sexual misconduct and domestic violence.
Substantial backlog
The clock is ticking for POST to clear its backlog of cases — and keep up with new ones coming in while coping with a staff shortage. The agency has only filled seven of its 27 investigator positions, according to data obtained through a public records act request.
The vacancies have had “a tremendous impact” on the commission’s ability to review cases, according to Annemarie Del Mugnaio, Assistant Executive Director for POST’s Standards and Accountability Division.
To fill those roles, the commission has turned to retirees who can only work part-time.
“We can't assign as many cases to those folks,” Del Mugnaio said.
She believes the staffing shortage hasn’t impacted the commission’s work on high priority cases, such as ones where a law enforcement agency has already investigated and sustained allegations of serious misconduct. But others are stuck.
“I know it slows down those lower priority cases, because they're sitting in queue,” she said.
Over 9,000 open cases have not yet been assigned to an investigator, according to POST. The longer those cases wait, the greater the risk the three-year statute of limitations will expire.
About 3,400 cases are more than a year old; 275 cases are more than two years old.
“Absolutely, there is a concern,” Del Mugnaio said.
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