Big cities throughout California continue to be roiled by police issues. Oakland and San Francisco have gotten the most attention because of high-profile

But the two iconic Bay Area cities are hardly alone in having police problems.

In Sacramento, last month’s release of a video showing officers’ July 11 killing of Joseph Mann, a mentally ill African American who was carrying a knife, has shaken public faith in the Police Department. The agency refused to provide the video or to offer key details about the incident until forced to by the Sacramento Bee’s release of a surveillance video on Sept. 20. It was revealed that before officers shot Mann 14 times, they tried to run him over, though he appeared no immediate threat to anyone.

A casualty of the controversy may be the Sacramento Community Police Commission, which formed last year partly in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Last week, the chairman of the commission — Sacramento pastor Les Simmons — abruptly resigned. At a press conference, he said the commission’s lack of authority to subpoena witnesses and conduct independent investigations left him feeling he was “not being relevant and true to my community.” The panel is essentially a city advisory body.

Days before the Bee released the video, Sacramento Police Chief Sam Somers Jr. announced he was retiring in December, when new Mayor Darrell Steinberg takes office. Somers insisted his decision was unrelated to his officers’ fatal shooting of Mann. But the Sacramento Bee reported that Somers wasn’t comfortable with the new era in which police are routinely called on to defend and justify their actions.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Commission — which has the level of authority that Simmons wants in Sacramento — has broken with Police Chief Charlie Beck over two police killings in 2015. On Sept. 20, a near-unanimous board ruled that both cases violated LAPD’s use-of-force guidelines. In one case, James Joseph Byrd — a 45-year-old white man with a history of mental illness — was shot to death after throwing a beer bottle that hit a police car. In the other, Norma Guzman — a 37-year-old Latina with a history of mental illness — was shot to death while brandishing a knife and approaching officers.

Beck offered a particularly vigorous defense of his officers’ handling of the Guzman case. But commissioners — and members of the public — repeatedly questioned why officers didn’t use a Taser to subdue the woman.

L.A. officers must ‘choose your life or your job’

This drew a fierce counterattack from the LAPD union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, on its website:

Run away. If a police officer is confronted by a suspect with a weapon, those entrusted to set policies for the Police Department believe officers should run away. That’s the recent finding from the Los Angeles Police Commission which has turned Monday morning quarterbacking into a weekly agenda item at the three-ring circus they preside over every Tuesday morning. …

The Commission is becoming nothing more than a politically motivated rubber stamp for the warped worldview of a handful of activists that they pander to. …

The message the Los Angeles Police Commission is sending to officers confronted with a violent and dangerous suspect is clear: You can save your life or save your job, but you cannot do both. You choose.

The Police Commission dismissed the union criticism and followed up last week by approving new policies meant to reduce civilian deaths and to promote transparency. The policies require significantly more information to be released about shootings involving officers; an increased emphasis on role-playing training using “real world” scenarios; and regular evaluations of how serious incidents that don’t end in tragedy are handled to develop a best-practices approach to scaling down confrontations with individuals.

Commissioner Steve Soboroff — the only member to side with Chief Beck and defend the fatal shootings of Boyd and Guzman — joined in the unanimous vote to force changes on the LAPD.

Many Americans are familiar with the Taser, a nonlethal device used by law enforcement to shock and immobilize. Fewer are aware that the Taser is the creation of a company with the same name — or that the Taser corporation runs a division devoted to wearable and cloud-powered monitoring devices. Known as Evidence.com, the division works closely with police departments across the country to facilitate data management, including data obtained in the course of “evidence gathering.”

From the sound of its sales pitch, Evidence.com doesn’t put civil liberties front and center. After all, it promises law enforcement agencies the ability to “capture anything anywhere.”

More technology, more liberty?

But that’s where ex-Facebook and Google Maps impresario Bret Taylor comes in. Taylor’s latest move finds him joining the board of Taser as an independent director — and instead of giving the impression that he’s selling out to Big Surveillance, he’s delivering the opposite message. In a statement reported by TechCrunch, Taylor specifically makes the case for better civil liberties through enhanced law enforcement technology.

“Taser is applying technology to important social issues that I care deeply about,” he said. “This is an important opportunity to use technology to protect civil liberties. I believe Taser is poised to revolutionize the public safety space with enhanced transparency from body-worn camera technology while leveraging the cloud to manage the massive data being generated by wearable cameras and sensors. I’m thrilled to be joining the Taser board.”

Momentum for body cameras has grown recently, especially in Los Angeles, where Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff has made the feature a centerpiece of his approach to fighting crime and reducing officer abuse. In April, the L.A. Police Commission found itself lecturing the LAPD in the wake of discoveries that officers had tampered with in-car recording devices. In addition to transparency and cloud usage, Taylor is poised to confront stubborn, if not universal, resistance to round-the-clock self-monitoring by police forces.

Opening the floodgates for drones

If Google and Facebook are relatively well-known California companies setting the tone for surveillance in today’s society, there’s almost no name recognition surrounding an equally important firm — AeroVironment of Monrovia in the San Gabriel Valley. Although its tagline is “Human Power,” AeroVironment is in the business of manufacturing drones.

And AeroVironment’s Puma drone is among the first approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for commercial flight over land, a game-changing development that signals the government’s changing attitude toward the technology. Although approved last summer, the drone’s status was only recently revealed by the FAA. The Puma will patrol the region surrounding Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, reports the Associated Press, taking 3D pictures of inaccessible areas as part of an environmental and business effort conducted by the BP oil company.

Regulators and drone industry lobbyists both acknowledge it may be years before a full-fledged drone policy takes shape in Washington. Nevertheless, public and private sector players are emphasizing that the future, for all intents and purposes, is now. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told the AP that the Prudhoe Bay project is an “important step toward broader commercial use of unmanned aircraft. The technology is quickly changing, and the opportunities are growing.”

Because the Puma drone was created and first used as a military craft, the government’s comfort level with AeroVironment’s limited commercial venture is relatively high. Innovators itching to put drones to broader use, however, are ready to push the FAA for more concessions — and to jump the gun if need be. One youthful entrepreneur, GauravJit Singh, recently launched one of his DroneCast advertising drones without explicit FAA approval.