FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Kentucky’s hate crimes law would be expanded to include targeting police officers and other emergency responders under a bill advanced by a House committee on Wednesday.
Supporters told the House Judiciary Committee that the measure signals support for law officers who can face threat of attack simply for wearing police badges.
“I signed up to put myself in danger,” said Bowling Green police Sgt. Shawn Helbig. “I didn’t sign up to be executed or to be killed or injured simply for wearing a uniform.”
Opponents including members of the Black Lives Matter movement said the bill would dilute a law written for people needing protection due to their race, religion or sexual orientation.
“Uniforms can be taken off. The color of your skin cannot be washed off,” said Reena Piracha, a native of Pakistan who now lives in Oldham County.
The measure easily cleared the Judiciary Committee and heads to the full House. House Speaker Jeff Hoover said the measure appears to have strong support in the Republican-led chamber. If it passes the House, the proposal will head to the GOP-controlled Senate.
The bill would apply to law officers, firefighters and emergency medical crews.
“We need to show that if you’re going to attack one of our first responders, you’re going to get the full brunt of Kentucky law,” Republican state Rep. Kevin Bratcher, the bill’s lead sponsor.
One critic of the bill, Louisville attorney Julie Kaelin, said it would not better protect law officers and other front-line emergency responders.
“There are actual ways we can help officers, and this is just lip service,” she said.
Under Kentucky law, judges can determine a hate crime occurred if the offense was motivated by a victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation or national origin.
If the law is expanded, people found to have committed a hate crime for attacking law officers wouldn’t face enhanced penalties. State law already includes additional penalties for harming police officers. But an offender’s hate crime status could be cited by judges in denying probation at sentencing or by a parole board in denying parole.
Last year, Louisiana became the first state to expand its hate crime laws to protect police, firefighters and emergency medical crews.
Kentucky is among about a dozen states considering similar legislation.
Helbig, who appeared before the committee in his role as a Fraternal Order of Police official, said a hate crime should apply when someone is harmed “for what they are. To attack an officer for simply wearing a uniform clearly fits the definition of a hate crime,” he said.
Justin Nix, a University of Louisville assistant professor of criminal justice, said hate crimes against law officers would be difficult to prove.
“If a suspect assaults an officer while attempting to evade arrest, was he motivated by anti-police bias?” he said. “Or rather, did the suspect simply wish to avoid going to jail?”
Police deaths on the job have generally declined over the past four decades, from a recent high of 280 in 1974 to a low of 109 in 2013, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. But officer deaths have steadily risen since then, up to 136 in 2016. Those figures include attacks on police as well as accidental deaths such as car crashes.
In Kentucky, 13 police officers have been fatally shot since 2000, Nix said. Deaths resulting from other attacks such as stabbings, assaults and vehicular assaults are rarer.
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The legislation is House Bill 14.
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