California police employment records

California’s certification file covers 324,537 officers who appear in its records between 1911-01-01 and 2025-04-21, across 847 agencies, in 494,982 employment records.

2025-04-21: coverage through
1911-01-01: earliest record
324,537: officers
847: agencies
494,982: employment records
latest separation date: coverage basis

The coverage date is computed from the file itself — the basis is the latest separation date. The publisher states 2026. Source: NPI published bucket. Retrieved 2026-08-29.

Reporting

The reporting on California’s police records

CalMatters, with the LA Times, SF Chronicle and KQED · August 2025

California police misconduct records now available in public database

A seven-year collaboration opened 1.5 million pages covering about 12,000 misconduct and use-of-force cases from nearly 700 California agencies, built with UC Berkeley and Stanford’s Big Local News. None of it was obtainable before SB 1421 in 2018 and SB 16 in 2021.

KPBS · March 2025

San Diego officers among hundreds in California stripped of their badges under recent law, but large backlog remains

Nearly 300 officers decertified in two years under SB 2, against more than 35,000 cases referred to POST since 2023. Over 9,000 open cases had no investigator assigned, 3,400 were more than a year old, and only 7 of 27 investigator posts were filled — against a three-year statute of limitations.

What this data does not say

It never asserts that anyone is currently employed. The supported statement is that a person is listed as employed at an agency as of 2025-04-21, with no separation recorded.
Records are state-scoped. California certification numbers are issued by its own board, so someone certified in two states appears in two files and is never merged into one history.
Measured across the 26 published files as of 2026-08-29, 69,683 officer records are open at two or more agencies at once — a genuine dual appointment, or a separation the board never recorded. Counted per file, never across states. The data cannot tell the two apart, so neither is asserted.

Where this comes from, and how to correct it

This page presents what NPI published bucket made available, as it was released. Some files reach us directly from the reporting agency and some through intermediaries that obtained them under public-records law; either way the content is the agency’s, not ours. CaseParity does not investigate, verify, correct or vouch for any individual record, and takes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of what a reporting agency published.

A correction to the record itself is made by the certifying agency that issued it — that is the only route that changes it at the source, and therefore everywhere it appears, here included. If what this page shows does not match that agency’s file, write to hello@caseparity.com and say which record and which field. No response time is promised, and nothing here substitutes for going to the agency.

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CaseParity is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.