Texas Governor Latest To Ask For A 'Hate Crime' Law That Covers Attacks On Cops
from the red-tape-around-a-blue-line dept
Yet another politician can be added to the list of people who think police officers just don't have enough protections as is. Following in the footsteps of legislators in New Jersey and Minnesota -- along with Rep. Ken Buck (CO) -- Texas governor Greg Abbott has decided it's time to treat attacking officers as a "hate crime."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wants the targeted killing of a police officer to be deemed a hate crime in Texas and urged lawmakers to send him such a bill to sign during next year’s legislative session.
Abbott announced Monday his plan to lobby for adding his Police Protection Act to Texas law. Along with extending hate-crime protections to law enforcement, the measure would also increase criminal penalties for any crimes in which the victim is a law enforcement officer and “create a culture of respect for law enforcement by organizing a campaign to educate young Texans on the value law enforcement officers bring to their communities,” according to a statement from Abbott’s office.
Nothing "creates a culture of respect" like handing beneficiaries of a host of "extra rights" even more protection in the form of stiffer penalties just because the victim was wearing a certain uniform. As Fault Line's JoAnne Musick points out, "hate crime" laws are generally enacted to provide greater protections for historically underprotected classes, not those already in positions of power.
Are police an otherwise vulnerable group? Is violence against an officer intended to hurt or intimidate the entire police community? Are crimes against officers underreported and in need of encouragement to prosecute them? Plain and simple, the answers are no. Police are not particularly more vulnerable. In fact, they are better trained and greater equipped to protect each other and themselves. Crimes against police are rarely underreported. They are most definitely heavily prosecuted – as they should be. So, why is there a need to create a special class?
The Dallas shooting that left five officers dead is the only reason this call for legislation even exists. It's a kneejerk reaction that shifts even more power to the powerful. It's sure to gather support from legislators because who could possibly be opposed to punishing cop killers? Add to that the further consolidation of power it represents and there's very little chance someone won't run this up the legislative flagpole. After all, the governor himself is calling for legislation, so it's guaranteed to become law if it hits his desk. That's an easy win -- something legislators like almost as much as jingoism and "tough on crime" posturing.
Rather than address the issues that have led to this (seeming) flashpoint (despite the recent murders of police officers, numbers are still on track for another "normal" year in on-duty officer deaths), politicians like Abbott have decided to give law enforcement yet another tool to use to significantly harm anyone who doesn't immediately comply with their commands. And this is in a state that already adds years to sentences if the crime victim is a police officer.
[A] simple assault is a class A misdemeanor carrying a punishment of up to one year in jail; however a simple assault against a police officer is a third degree felony punishable up to 10 years in prison.
That's the current law. Abbott wants something above and beyond this. Simple assault, under current Texas law, includes simply threatening someone or "provocatively" making physical contact. Push back when being arrested? That's assault. Accidentally bump an officer's elbow while attempting to comply with a frisk? Assault. The law already encourages prosecutors to pile on. This would make it even worse.
The underlying issues, which have prompted a horrifically violent reaction, aren't going to be mitigated by giving law enforcement and prosecutors even more leverage. Greg Prickett -- a 20-year veteran of law enforcement -- points out that the current miserable state of affairs can't be blamed on anything other than law enforcement's own actions over the past few decades. According to Prickett, this is what's prompted the shooting of law enforcement officers.
It’s simple, really. It is militarization of the police coupled with a lack of accountability for their actions.
Law enforcement has shifted away from being an integral part of the communities they serve and opted instead to view themselves as an occupying force in a war zone. The weapons and vehicles are repurposed military gear. Officers' training goes heavy on force deployment. Very rarely are tactics like de-escalation or actual community-oriented policing given any priority. While there's no condoning the actions of people who kill cops, the reality is that law enforcement itself has shown over the years that its preferred method of communication is violence. It's the only thing it truly understands.
Governor Abbott may think he can reverse this course by throwing more prison time at certain criminals, but it's not going to stop people from killing cops. All it's really going to do is give officers and prosecutors a way to inflict maximum pain for the most minimal injury or perceived slight.
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Filed Under: cops, greg abbott, hate crime, police shootings, texas
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You're doing it wrong
Respect isn't something you teach, it's something you earn, and if more and more people don't respect police it's because they've shown that they're not worthy of respect.
If he wants to 'create a culture of respect for law enforcement' then he needs to start with law enforcement. Actual accountability, real oversight, equal treatment under the law... giving an already highly 'protected' group even more special treatment is not going to increase anything but resentment and disrespect, and rightly so, 'education' or not.
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Re: You're doing it wrong
I guess the message that respect is earned goes right over the heads of those who believe they are entitled to it in the first place.
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Re: Re: You're doing it wrong
(Personally I don't care what uniform and/or badge someone has, I care what they do while they're wearing and/or carrying it. Actions, not outfits or accessories are what make a person worthy or not worthy of respect.)
In the situation of schools I imagine they think that simply being teachers/principals is enough to make them worthy of respect, with no actions beyond that needed, so from their mindset they already have 'earned' the respect they demand from the students, which simply isn't the case.
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If you can't earn respect, then instill fear.
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Re: If you can't earn respect, then instill fear.
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Re: If you can't earn respect, then instill fear.
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Now they need protected status as well?
How fragile are these "heroes" anyways?
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Mad Max
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Texan here...
While I generally agree with many things regarding Abbott, I definitely HATE the republican party platform on turning American into a muthafukin POLICE STATE!!!!
If the Democrats would stop importing Death to America culture I could see myself voting democrat, but holy fucking shit!
So the choice is... Destroy America by immigration with Hillary or
Destroy America by Police State with Donald...
Then again... the democrats are pro police state too! I constantly have to wonder why blacks keep voting for the very people telling them which party they should belong too just because they are black.
I would never support a Texit while this bastard is in office!
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Re: Texan here...
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Re: Texan here...
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Re:
Cognitive Dissonance IS A REQUIREMENT for membership!
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When will these persecuted careers get hate crime protections
Those careers include:
-Abortion Doctors (Some of whom have been murdered for their career, including Dr. George Tiller who was assassinated in a church. Others face death threats or threats of violence, and some abortion doctors even have guards on their staff to protect them because they feel the danger to their life & their business's property justifies it)
-Lawyers & IRS agents (The two most widely hated careers in the US, that always make it on lists of worst people by professions no matter who writes the list. If so many people hate them for their job, you could argue they might be targets of violence much more then most careers because of their job)
-Politicians (Some of whom have also been murdered for their career, including Presidents of the US)
Yet I see NO ONE rushing to give hate crime protections to those few careers that can demonstrate actual discrimination or danger due to their career. Because of course those careers are unpopular, so hate crime protections for them would be unpopular, but cops aren't unpopular, which just proves the point of why hate crime protections aren't needed for them.
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Re: When will these persecuted careers get hate crime protections
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Gaining respect is easy
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Re: Gaining respect is easy
Fear and Intimidation... that's easy!
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Just look here:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/22/487027848/north-miami-officer-was-aiming-at-m an-with-autism-union-chief-says
"It was only much later, Rivera said, that the officers realized two important facts: that the man next to Kinsey has autism, and that he did not have a gun."
Well maybe before you go blasting, Rambo, you should KNOW if he had a gun or not. THIS is the problem. Cops are such pussies nowadays, and apparently a poor marksman too. One guy (Kinsey) was on the ground, on his back with his hands up, the other guy, with autism, was sitting in the street playing with a truck:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/miami-police-officer-identified-shooting-black-therap ist-article-1.2721929
Cops are cowards anymore.
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The us vs them mindset has to go.
It's bad enough that there's America's the posterchild for firearms, nevermind the an adult can can aquire one. If all this back and forth tension keeps escalating, it'll eventually reach a point where it's the people vs the government.
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This is only going to become another tool used BY officers to oppress civilians.
In Texas, I imagine it is a well armed civilian population.
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blue legs good...
brown,
yellow,
red,
white legs bad ! ! !
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"occupying force in a war zone"
Nixon formally declared a "war on drugs".
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
— John Ehrlichman, Nixon White House Domestic Affairs Advisor, on the War on drugs in a Harper's Magazine interview in 1994
War, indeed.
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A Lone Voice of Sanity
In related news: more cops die. (rinse, lather, repeat)
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So what legal punishment would be worse than ...
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