Somehow, I'm imagining a frustrated police officer in Harlem concerned with making their arrest quota -- right after an unsuccessful "stop and frisk" of a teenaged African American -- "accidentally" bumping into said African American teen, and then charging him or her with "aggravated harassment." But then again, I've been known to have a vivid imagination.
The New York State Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would make it a felony to hit a police officer with intent to “annoy.”
Senate bill 2402 would establish the crime of “aggravated harassment,” punishable by up to four years in prison. According to the bill, a person would be guilty of “aggravated harassment” if they struck, kicked or otherwise subjected an officer to “physical contact” with intent to “harass, annoy, threaten or alarm.”
On its face, this might seem like a reasonable statute to protect police officers from assault by an enraged citizen. However, like any legislative action put forth by local or federal lawmakers these days... the insidiousness is in the details.
Frankly, this is a situational judgment call by police officers that could be misused to make even accidental physical contact a felony. And unless there's either an eyewitness or one of New York City's thousands of street cameras happens to catch an image of the event in question that can then be summoned by a defendant in a court of law -- the accused will no way to mount a defense.
The vagueness of the bill's language is a recipe for abusing the arrest process, especially those occurring in minority communities populated by poor, Black and Hispanic citizens that are already plagued by widespread dishonest policing practices. "Intent" is everything. How long will it take an overzealous cop to abuse it?
Gawker has the story via Alternet:
It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where an officer could abuse the “intent” portion of the law to— as Gawker’s Max Read puts it—“arrest and convict people on a very thin pretext!”
The bill will now go to New York’s General Assembly.
Yeah, this is what a police state looks like.