Police Chief Jeff Piper had a message for voters in California following a shooting of two Whittier police officers on Monday left one officer dead and the other injured. The man suspected of the shooting has a long record of encounters with the police, according to the Independent Journal Review.
"We need to wake up. Enough is enough. You are passing these propositions, you're creating these laws that is raising crime," Piper said during a Monday press conference.
Michael Christopher Mejia, who is also suspected of murdering his cousin earlier on Monday, was shifted to county control under Assembly Bill 109, according to the Whittier Daily News.
The bill shifted non-violent offenders from state prisons to county jails, or from state-supervised parole to county-supervised probation. Mejia was originally imprisoned for grand theft auto and has been arrested five times in seven months for breaking his probation.
Keith Boyer, the Whittier police officer who was killed, was a 28 year veteran of the force. He was the third officer to die while on duty for the department, and the first since 1979, the Whittier Daily News reported.