Green Bay Reporter

Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde supports Assembly Bill 523 that calls attention to the decertification of officers that commit misconduct.

“The first step toward any meaningful criminal justice improvements requires trust and good faith,” Moore Omokunde said.

Under current law, officers may be decertified for a variety of reasons. 

“What it’s intended to do is to prevent the shuffling around of police officers to different jurisdictions when they violate use-of-force principles or they do something that is fireable or gets them under investigation as a police officer,” Moore Omokunde told the Wisconsin Examiner in 2021.

AB 523 adds the following to the list of reasons to decertify an officer: Violating a use of force policy to which the officer is subject and terminating employment while under investigation for committing an act of official misconduct.

Officers decertified while under investigation for committing an act of official misconduct may not be re-certified in the future unless the officer receives a waiver. 

“We know about bad apples and what happens to bad apples,” Moore Omokunde said. “So we have to change the culture of policing as well. We don’t need to just reform and change the shape of something. We need to look at the core of what public safety means, and what it is and actually change it at its core.”