Fake News: NO New Bill That Would Require Officers to Call Supervisor Before Drawing Weapons

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: NO New Bill That Would Require Officers to Call Supervisor Before Drawing Weapons

Did Kamala Harris sponsor a new bill named "A Second Chance" that would require police officers to call their supervisor befor drawing a weapon? No, that's not true: the story was published by a police satire website as a joke, it is not real.

The story originated from an article published by Blue News Network on March 12, 2019 titled "New Bill Would Require Officers to Call Supervisor Before Drawing Weapons | Blue News Network" (archived here) which opened:

San Bernardino, CA- In a recent bill presented to the Senate, law enforcement officers would be required to request permission from their shift supervisor before utilizing their service weapon. The bill, titled "A Second Chance", is geared towards "preventing police atrocities." As part of the bill, officers finding themselves in a life threatening situation would first need to call their supervisor and ask before introducing their service weapon into the scenario. Further, the supervisor would then in turn have to call a local civilian committee to discuss the matter so that a community backed decision can be made. These steps would be taken prior to drawing not only their firearm but any other weapon, including tasers, OC spray and batons.

Users on social media might see this title, description and thumbnail:

New Bill Would Require Officers to Call Supervisor Before Drawing Weapons | Blue News Network

BNN is your trusted source for fake news.

As you can see it clearly indicates "BNN is your trusted source for fake news", and the site has another disclaimer in the footer that reads:

BNN is your source for law enforcement satire.

However when shared on Facebook the description text with the warning did not appear in at least some cases:

bnnpost.jpg

This lead several people to believe the story was in fact real:

So in accordance with our Satire Policy we rate this story "Satire" for the people who didn't get the joke...

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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