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FRANKFORT — A GOP-sponsored bill approved by a legislative committee Thursday morning would criminalize harassing or impeding a “first responder” going about their duties including local law enforcement, medics and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
A Democrat who voted against the bill said he worries it could punish people who are exercising their constitutional right to film officers.
Sen. Matt Nunn, R-Sadieville, the primary sponsor of Senate Bill 104, told members of the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs, and Public Protection Committee his bill is intended to “ensure that the people who “protect and serve our commonwealth every day can do so without any interference, any impediments.”
“That way they can go home safely every day and the people they’re protecting and serving get the best, most efficient, effective treatment,” Nunn said.
The nine Republicans on the committee voted to advance the bill for consideration on the Kentucky Senate floor. Two Democrats voted against the bill after expressing concerns over increasing penalties surrounding interactions with law enforcement and the potential for infringement on First Amendment rights.
Nunn described SB 104 as a “Halo Act,” the name for a bill in Congress backed by the National Police Association that would create a 25-foot buffer zone around federal immigration officers where it would be illegal to harass, threaten or interfere with the officers after being given a warning.
Nunn’s bill is written similarly to the federal Halo Act and he presented the bill in committee alongside representatives with the Kentucky Sheriffs’ Association and Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police. Nunn said he has also heard from emergency medical technicians who support the bill, telling him people have impeded them while trying to give medical care out in the field.
SB 104 would criminalize harassing, impeding or threatening “with physical harm” first responders going about their duties if that first responder had given a verbal warning and the person enters and remains within a 25-foot buffer zone of the first responder. The first few offenses would be misdemeanors, while the fourth offense would be a Class D felony. Nunn said he believed the felony charge was an “appropriate escalation” given the multiple interactions with law enforcement a person has to have.
Harassment is defined in the bill as meaning “to intentionally engage in a course of conduct directed at a first responder which causes or is intended to cause substantial emotional distress in the first responder and serves no legitimate purpose.”
Nunn said the definition of who a first responder is would include ICE agents, which Democratic Sen. Gary Clemons, D-Louisville, brought up concerns referencing the conduct of masked agents under the Trump administration.
Clemons, who voted against the bill advancing, said he understood the goal of protecting emergency medical technicians, but he worried about situations in which law enforcement could be approaching people within the buffer zone who are exercising their First Amendment rights by filming officers.
“We’ve seen what’s going on on TV right now,” Clemons said. “My problem right now, we’ve got some masked individuals that are coming up towards us.”
Nunn told reporters after the bill had passed out of committee that his bill would not prevent anyone from exercising their right to free speech or recording from 25 feet away from an officer.
“If an officer feels they’re being harassed, they ask you to step away and back up 25 feet,” Nunn said. “You can still record from 25 feet away. All this is saying is, ‘Give me space to perform my duty so I can do it in a safe manner.’”
When asked if the new crime would apply to protest situations where law enforcement are moving toward protestors, Nunn said as long as protesters are not impeding or harassing law enforcement “then there’s no problem.”
Nunn referenced federal law enforcement also applying under the bill when talking about seeing “bad outcomes” on the news.
“Often it’s because it’s a stressful situation, and so what this bill would do is it kind of turns down the volume or turns down the temperature of those stressful situations so people who are performing a duty can do so in a way that they’re not agitated, and we can hopefully prevent some of those bad outcomes,” Nunn said.