George Perezvelez has 17 plus years of law enforcement oversight, civil rights and community advocacy. George formed an interest in oversight involvement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he participated in 1st Amendment rights demonstrations in Boston, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia.
George has served as a NACOLE Board at large member as well as treasurer for the last three years . George is the current Co-Chair of the 2023 Conference Committee as well as a member of the Policy and Procedure Revision Committee, Executive Committee and the Internal Operations Committee. George is CPO certified by NACOLE since 2018.
George moved to the Bay Area in 2003 and was soon appointed to two police oversight boards, the Berkeley Police Review Commission (PRC) and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Citizens Review Board (BPCRB). George served as Chair or Vice Chair of the Berkeley PRC on eight occasions during his tenure. George was the Chair of the BPCRB during its first two formative years and currently serves as its Chair for the year 2023-2024.
George has been a longtime advocate and volunteer for Progressive Policing Practices and Criminal Justice Reform. He served as a community advisor for public safety for the local NAACP and ACLU chapters from 2014-2018. The organizations generated a policy study titled “State of Policing in Minority Communities: A study on Racial Bias and the Marginalization of Communities of Color”. George has served on critical subcommittees that generated and developed some of the first Bay Area policies addressing Body Worn Cameras, Minimal Use of Force, Treatment of Homeless Individuals and the Treatment of Transgender Individuals. Such policies have been used as models in other cities in California and have helped set the standards for progressive and sustainable policies.
In his work as a Police Oversight Commissioner, George has been responsible for the review and writing of 400 plus policies as well as the issuance of findings and discipline recommendations on allegations of police officer misconduct. George added his voice in the implementation, with the office of the Independent Auditor (OIPA), of fifty-two changes to the BART Police Citizen Review Board (BPCRB) model and served as the Chair of a subcommittee that successfully wrote and passed through the Berkeley City Council a ballot initiative improving the 1973 ordinance that created the Berkeley PRC. The ballot initiative garnered 83% of the vote in the 2020 election cycle and was implemented in 2021.
George contributed to the Berkeley Police Review Commission (PRC) after-action report on the Berkeley Black Lives Matter protests of 2014 titled “Investigation into the Police Department Response to Protest on December 6th” resulting in a reassessment of the crowd control and management policy.
George just finalized the writing of a groundbreaking Use of Force policy for the City of Berkeley building on the recommendations by President Obama’s 2015 “President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing” and PERF’S 2106 “Guiding Principles of Force” and establishing a “objectively reasonable, objectively necessary proportional standard” with a minimal reliance on the use of force. George is currently working on a revision of the BART Police Use of Force policy.
George is continuing to work on a paper titled “Minimal Reliance on Use of Force: A study on the implementation of a stricter Use of Force standard” based on a review of Graham v. Connor as the floor and not the ceiling and as a continuation to his advocacy work on behalf of the passage of CA SB230 (required elements in all Use of Force policies), CA AB392 (establishing a “necessary” standard) and CA AB1506 (independent investigation process for all deadly use of force incidents).
George holds a BS in Political Science from Clark University, an AS in Economics from George Washington University and an AS in Hospitality Management for Johnson and Wales University.