The Newest Class of People Who Need Legal Protection?

People who run over protesters. Yep, looks that way

I was pretty shocked to read recently of a new trend, or perhaps a fashion, in a number of state legislatures — GOP led legislatures. This new trend is “anti-protest” legislation. According to a recent article in The Hill at least 80 such bills have been introduced in 34 states just in the first few months of this year; and this is more than double the number of such bills introduced in any other year according to a center which tracks such legislation.

There is no dispute that protests have been greater both in number and size, starting roughly in May of 2020 after the George Floyd videos made their way around the world. Then there were the many other instances of black people getting brutalized, and often killed, by police — naturally there was going to be more protests.

These bills are asserted to be (by supporters) necessary to address “rioting” and to support law enforcement in responding to unlawful protests. For the most part, they include stricter penalties for certain types of behavior during “civil unrest,” and some also make it harder for cities to cut police budgets. I don’t really have much of a problem with those sorts of provisions; though it’s usually a bad idea to have too many different laws covering the same exact crime that occurs in a different context.

But Oklahoma and Iowa are seeking to pass bills that, in my humble opinion, go WAY too far. The bills in those states include provisions for immunity for drivers of vehicles that plow into protestors who are on a public street.

This could just possibly be the dumbest idea since…well, since Trump was talking about nuking hurricanes or fighting COVID-19 by using disinfectants in the human body.

I can’t help but notice that these bills are in Oklahoma and Iowa, those hotbeds of civil rights progress; and also can’t ignore that (if my memory serves) in the past known incidents of vehicles being driven into or over protestors were not driven by black or brown people.

According to an article in USA Today, from May 27 through September 5, 2020, there were 104 instances of protestors being hit by vehicles (96 by civilians and 8 by police) — and funny thing, they were almost all BLM protestors who were injured or killed by contact with vehicles. And I seem to recall something about an incident in Charlottesville, VA back in 2017 — something about a Neo-Nazi in a vehicle killing one protestor and injuring many others — folks who were there counter-protesting a Unite the Right rally. You remember, the one with very fine people on both sides.

A similar bill was introduced in December 2020 in Indiana (haven’t researched subsequent history on it yet); and recently Florida Gov. DeSantis actually signed a bill into law. So far I’ve only tracked down some of the referenced bills to review their actual language. Some of them make it clear that the laws regarding reckless driving, or intentionally hitting someone, curtail the planned immunity— others do not, remaining rather vague.

Now, supporters of these bills (all brought by Republicans) argue that they are needed to protect folks in vehicles who find themselves surrounded by violent rioters who are actually rioting, or engaging in “unlawful assembly.” If that was what all the bills said and did, they might be alright — but some do not distinguish between rioters and protestors; and (apparently) all of them use the vague term “unlawful assembly,” which is solely triggered by police.

Some states are also trying to create additional penalties or restrictions for people convicted of “unlawful assembly,” like not being able to work in a state or local government job (Indiana). In Minnesota (divided control between House and Senate), the legislature is trying to keep anyone convicted of “unlawful assembly” from being able to get financial aid, including student loans or Unemployment Insurance.

It is not difficult to imagine (since it’s happened before) that there is a peaceful protest going on in a certain neighborhood — any protest. The police want the event to end, so all they have to do is announce “this is now an unlawful assembly” (even if it’s not), and it would evidently be fair game on the protestors in the road as long as you don’t change lanes to hit them? Is that the way it’s supposed to work? The police create “the crime” by declaring it an “unlawful assembly,” and (in Indiana) a state employee who was there at the peaceful protest, loses her job?

Do we really need to create a new class of protected persons? And many new classes of burdened ones?