New California law bans officers from using gloves that deliver electric shocks

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Tuesday banning local, state and federal law enforcement officers from using gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks to people.

The ban on shock gloves will take effect next year and remain in place until 2030. It comes weeks after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to equip its officers with the gloves, which are designed to gain compliance from combative individuals. Last month, the agency awarded a nearly $17 million contract to buy 6,000 pairs.

“Trump has put his political interests above the health, safety and livelihood of American families,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is taking action to strengthen transparency, accountability, and oversight around immigration enforcement in our state.”

The law is the latest example of how Democratic-led states have been pushing back against President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts since he took office last year. In California, lawmakers passed at least two dozen bills this year seeking to fortify immigrants’ rights, restrict cooperation with federal immigration agents and tighten regulations on immigrant detention facilities, among other things. Newsom signed many of them Tuesday.

Nationwide, 17 states with Democratic-led legislatures have passed a total of more than 100 pro-immigrant bills this year, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill tracking software Plural. The most common purpose is to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents.

Democratic California Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins said she introduced the shock-gloves legislation to “put a pause” on law enforcement’s use of the devices while the state examines their potential risks. The law requires the state’s Justice Department to study their safety and report to lawmakers by 2029.

“There’s a lot of unrest and a lot of uncertainty,” she said in an interview. “A lot of people are scared.”

The law will again test the state’s authority to restrict federal agents amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. A federal judge earlier this year blocked the state’s first-in-the-nation law barring federal officers from wearing face coverings, deeming it too selective because it applied to local and federal law enforcement but exempted state officers.

Lawmakers passed a new bill this year to make the ban apply to all officers. Newsom signed that legislation.

Kevin Johnson, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, said courts ultimately are likely to rule that the state cannot bar federal officers from wearing shock gloves or face coverings. The laws are well-intentioned, he said, but likely conflict with the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which generally sets federal law as supreme over conflicting state law.

“The state has very limited, if any, powers in dictating to the federal government how its officers are armed,” he said.

California law enforcement groups broadly opposed the ban, and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee, said the state didn’t have the authority to limit which weapons federal officers use.

“Governor, we’ve been through this already,” he wrote on X. “If you want to regulate federal agents, you have to win a federal election. Until then, you have no jurisdiction.”

Essayli also suggested federal officers would defy a law Newsom signed restricting them from using flash-bang grenades during protests and immigration enforcement.

“Or what? You’re going to write us a ticket,” Essayli posted.

Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper, a Democrat and former state lawmaker, said banning shock gloves “really makes no sense” because they are among the nonlethal tools officers can use if necessary.

“When the federal government does something, the state Legislature wants to ban it,” he said at a news conference. “They’re making our job harder.”

Sharp-Collins said ICE’s plan to use shock gloves was the catalyst for the ban. But she cited their use by other officers, including a case in which a Kentucky family alleges a man died after being tased and shocked with the gloves dozens of times while in law enforcement custody in 2024.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who wrote last year’s mask ban, also authored this year’s measure to expand it to state officers.

“California must use every available tool to stand up for our communities under attack from ICE’s secret police terror campaign,” he said in a statement after it passed the Legislature.

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Associated Press writer David A. Lieb contributed to this report from Jefferson City, Missouri.