Read the following article:
Resisting Arrest in Louisiana a Hate Crime
The question: Why is this legislation fundamentally flawed? What are the implications of this law? Why do you think it was proposed and passed?
Louisiana’s “Blue Lives Matter” Legislation
24
Jan
This law is a lot more than fundamentally flawed. The ironic part is that the role should be reversed: the law should protect the person accused of committing a crime, not the police officer accusing that person of committing a crime. In other words, if a police officer pulls somebody over for running a stop sign, makes that person get out of the car, handcuffs them, and they resist arrest, why would that be considered a hate crime by the driver and not the police officer who wanted to handcuff someone for running a stop sign? The implications that this law has is that instead of attempting to stop racism and discrimination between citizens and police officers, this will only progress the issue and the number of incidents we will see. For example, I believe this law was passed as an attempt to limit the uprising in protests and social movements as a result of Trump’s election. The article states, the Trump administration has vowed to make life uncomfortable for “the rioter, the looter [and] the violent disrupter.” It also pledges to increase the number of officers on the streets.” This means that if a police officer grabs someone’s arm during a protest and the protestor makes a move deemed to be aggressive, a minor disturbing the peace charge could be bumped up to an assault and possibly a hate crime offense.
A hate crime is a violent crime that is motivated by prejudice against a person because of their identity or membership in a social group. Resisting arrest or hitting a police officer is absolutely not a hate crime. If you are a police officer, you should expect that people trying to resist you will be a standard part of the job. Someone undermining a police officer’s authority is just that, there is no special intent to attack that person because of their appearance or identity. A hate crime is a personal attack; someone resisting arrest is in no way a personal or targeted attack. This law is also a problem because police officers have a tendency to accuse people, especially people of color, of resisting arrest when they are not. This would give police officers the ability to just declare that a person has committed a hate crime against them! Further, I find it disturbing that, “the Trump administration has vowed to make life uncomfortable for ‘the rioter, the looter [and] the violent disrupter.”’ I worry that, in response to the protests against Trump, that he as well as other state leaders will try to infringe on the rights of protestors. With more draconian laws like these, law enforcement officers could try to depict peaceful protestors as dangerous, and have people arrested unconstitutionally. I think that this law was also passed as a form of backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement. People of color face hate crimes every day, so it is sad that law enforcement officials are trying to inaccurately paint themselves as victims of hate crimes. Sadly, in this country we often fail to adequately punish real perpetrators of hate crimes, but here we have the government trying to redefine hate crimes in order to paint police officers as victims of a crime that goes unpunished when people of color are the victims. Clearly, the lawmakers of Louisiana do not actually know what a hate crime is, and are trying to appropriate something that they have never experienced for themselves.
Hate crime statutes have been been historically invoked to protect marginalized groups, especially susceptible to discrimination and bigotry. The police, as the enforcement arm of the state, can not possible qualify as a oppressed faction. This legislation is just a blatant attempt to chill potential protest, and quell any legitimate exercise of rights incident to a democratic polity. Any action or statement remotely critical of the police can be construed as a form of bigotry that, when conflated with an infraction against the officer, can be actionable under the statute. This is antithetical to a country supposed built to protect unassailable rights, the freedom of expression being one of them.
This legislation is flawed because resisting arrest is not a hate crime as hate crimes are motivated by discrimination towards certain groups. Resisting arrest does not equal hatred or prejudice towards the police and should not be treated as such. Louisiana’s decision to make resisting arrest a hate crime is a tactic used to protect the police and to scare potential protesters. The article states that “the Trump administration vowed to make life uncomfortable for ‘the rioter, the looter, [and] the violent disrupter'” and this law is the first step in dong that. The state is showing protesters that their actions will not be tolerated and that the protesters will not get off with a simple trespassing or disturbing the peace charge. If an officer deems their actions to be aggressive towards the police, a protester could get charged with a hate crime instead. This law is dangerous because too much power has been given to the police. If an officer manhandles an individual and that person resists arrest in an attempt to defend himself, the individual can still be charged with a hate crime. A charge can be issued as long as the officer sees the actions as aggressive. I think that officers will be more aggressive because they are protected and that this law will do more harm than good.
The legislation is extremely flawed in the way that it simply puts the label of “hate crime” on more offenses. When I think of a “hate crime” I naturally think the crime is more severe. Whether that is the case or not is one thing, but I believe hate crimes are very dangerous to society. Like the other responses, I believe this legislation is strictly to quell the protestors that have arisen during this social movement against cops mistreating minorities. I also believe that the Trump administration’s attempt to “make life uncomfortable for ‘the rioter, the looter, [and] the violent disrupter’” will only lead to more violence and outbreaks against this legislation. I truly believe to help end the violence there needs to be a metal understanding between police officers and the protestors. This is extremely tricky and I am not exactly sure how this can happen but passing this legislation and future legislations will only pin the two groups against each other further.
This law is fundamentally flawed on the sheer basis that resisting arrest is not a hate crime. A hate crime is motivated by racial, sexual or other prejudice. While there may be scenarios in which an individual will act out against a cop based on prejudice, resisting arrest is most commonly a rejection of authority or a call for rights. Additionally, this law grants police officers more protection and authority in a city that, according to the article, “carried more severe charges for crimes committed against a police officer.” This law was passed with the legitimate concern for the safety of Police Officers, but there is an underlying call for Police Officers more autonomy. The danger is the possibly that they can use the law to validate their use of force, carry out personal racist agendas, and beyond. While protecting police officers is valid, this law is very flawed in its extremity and also its loose lines that leave individual police officers able to decide what is considered an attack on them and what is not.
This legislation is fundamentally flawed because it’s protecting a group that already has uncontested power in the system. Additionally, this legislation will now classify career choice as an attribute that can be subjected to discrimination or violence from other people. I understand the definition of a hate crime and I don’t think its intended purpose was to protect people of certain career choices. This is another example of the states extending unnecessary power to the police.
This bill was an obvious response to the recent ambush shootings of police officers. However, this bill is offering protection to a group that is already protected. I believe this bill will also be a deterrent for people to protest because the simplest slight could be seen as resistance and the charges could be amped up. Quite frankly, it was passed to piss black people off, and criminalize us for resisting police brutality. Cop shootings are not common. Although when there are massive protests against the shootings of unarmed black men, there does seem to be a rise in cop shootings, it is not a common phenomenon. On the other hand, cops are not criminalized for shooting unarmed citizens, even when they are racially motivated. As long as they “fear for their life,” they are never in the wrong, so this legislation is clear double-standard that places the lives of one group over another.
It also leaves a gray area. For example, if an officer is trying to falsely arrest me and I defend myself, will that be a hate crime? I believe it will deter young people from protesting in Louisiana, but those who do decide to protest run the risk of amped up charges. This is just another way to funnel people into the prison-industrial complex and if it works, I believe many other states will try to do the same thing.
First of all, a law claiming to be in the name of “Blue Lives Matter” doesn’t make much sense. It’s a futile response to the Black Lives Matter movement. In my opinion, the whole counter movement is flawed because there are black people in America. However, there isn’t a group of blue people in this country. So, to insinuate that police officers are a marginalized group that needs to tell the word that their lives matter is wrong. We know that police lives matter. So, therefore, the law is flawed because it is trying to further protect a group who chose to pursue a profession. They should, of course, be protected and respected. However, this law is saying that being a police officer should become an identifier like race or sexual orientation in a way that I think is dangerous.
Secondly, the law is flawed because I think that the word “resist” is way too subjective. We’ve seen videos of totally compliant people being arrested with four or five police officers still saying “Stop resisting” when they obviously aren’t resisting. The implications of this law could further damage the already damaged relationship between police officers and minority communities. Also, I wouldn’t want this law to undermine the fundamental American right to protest and make your voice heard.
This law, as well as the Blue Lives Matter “movement”, was simply a response to BLM. It was proposed and passed because of the belief that officers are under attack from BLM advocates and protesters. Also, “Law and Order” ideologies like that of Nixon have made a dramatic resurgence.
The “Blue Lives Matter” piece of legislation which classifies acts of police resistance or battery as a hate crime is dangerously flawed. Hate crime laws are commonly designed to protect marginalized minority groups of citizens from targeted acts of violence. In fact, this law flies in the face of the traditional purpose of hate crime laws; African-Americans have long been the the target of police violence– the law should in-fact designate police violence and brutality against targeted minority groups as a hate crime. In my opinion, the legislation is aimed at quelling the wave of protests and demonstrations against police violence by protecting. Protecting the rights of citizens to protest will become extremely important under the current administration– so we must make sure that as a country we are not putting in place laws that violate the spirit of our democracy.
The first thing that comes to my mind is that all citizens of a democratic country should be equal and should be treated in the same way by the law. That includes also policemen who are nobody more important than regular citizens. It is true, though, that laws protecting policemen as persons who have a risky job are, in my opinion, quite common. (In Czech Republic aggression against a policeman is also considered as a severer crime than against other citizens and there is discussion about providing teachers with a similar status, by the way.) Nevertheless, the position of policemen in American society is not comparable to European policemen. American policemen’s authority is much higher.
Other thing is that just like Robin wrote, the definition of a hate crime is different. One might argue that policemen are also some kind of a social group and hitting a policeman, because she or he is a policeman than might be considered as hate crime according to the definition. Undoubtedly, resisting arrest can hardly be considered as a hate crime, though.
The law will definitely not contribute to eliminate the tensions between the police and (especially African American) citizens. Much rather the opposite. It encourages policemen to act even less humanly, it justifies superfluous police aggression, it makes the moat between policemen and citizens even deeper and discourages the police from respecting the presumption of innocence.
In recent months and years the United States witnessed many protests, riots and other peaceful and less peaceful events against the police aggression and police murders. I think, this legislation is a very wrong try to improve this situation. A try arising probably from the belief that the solution shall be based on the police being given even more power and authority. Unfortunately, I think that this law can only make things even worse.