The New York State Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would increase the penalties for killing first responders by making doing so a hate crime.
In New York, whenever anyone commits a crime against another person simply because he or she belongs to another group, the offense is labeled a hate crime, which immediately bumps the penalties up to a higher level. For instance, if a criminal commits a Class A misdemeanor against a person because the person is gay or black, the charge automatically becomes a felony.
The Community Heroes Protection Act would impose harsher penalties for violent attacks against police officers, firefighters and EMTs, the New York Post reports.
Although there are no reports of people killing cops and getting away with light prison sentences, a retired Republican undersheriff named Fred Ashkar thought it would be nice to protect the guys who have nothing on their side but guns, Tasers, pepper spray, handcuffs, batons, the rule of law, police unions, prosecutors, grand juries and a code of silence.
To be fair, 2016 was the deadliest year for law-enforcement officers since 2011. Last year, 135 law-enforcement officers died in the line of duty. But to be even fairer, that number includes illnesses, drownings, car accidents, heart attacks, drowning and one officer who died in an aircraft crash. To be fairest, police killed almost 10 times as many civilians (1,156) in 2016.
Apparently, there is such a thing as “blue lives” and, if this new bill making police officers a protected class becomes law, it will be definitive proof that their lives matter. Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Nicholas Heyward, Malcolm Ferguson and Tim Stansbury were not available to attest to the bill’s effectiveness.
When asked for comment, Eric Garner still could not breathe.
Read more at the New York Post.