Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, speaks in the Alabama House of Representatives on May 8, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery. Treadaway is sponsoring a a bill that could criminalize abusive language or gestures made toward first responders. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
An Alabama House committee Wednesday held a hearing on a bill that would allow law enforcement to arrest people who direct abusive language at first responders, make obscene gestures or linger at a response scene after being ordered to leave.
HB 224, sponsored by Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, prohibits someone from remaining within 25 feet of a first responder, such as firefighters and police, if they are ordered to keep their distance or vacate the scene.
“We have seen where firemen are trying to do their job, whether it is trying to hook up a hose that may be a block away, and groups of individuals are impeding their ability and puts lives in danger,” Treadaway, a retired Birmingham assistant police chief, told the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. “Same thing with law enforcement officers.”
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Those in violation of the law would be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $6,000 fine.
The original version of the legislation required people to remain 100 feet away from the first responder. It also defined harassment as “a course of conduct with the intent to cause substantial emotional distress and which serves no legitimate purpose.” A substitute offered by Treadaway on Wednesday reduced the distance from 100 to 25 feet and removed the harassment section.
Treadaway’s bill is one of many recent pieces of legislation in the Legislature aimed at enhancing police powers.
In the past two weeks, bills that moved through the committee allow law enforcement to impound people’s vehicles; place people on hold for 24 hours and charge people with a crime for failing to give police personal information.
The measures are part of an overall agenda laid out by the Republican-dominated Legislature in concert with Gov. Kay Ivey to address public safety.
Free speech advocates said Treadaway’s bill was so broad that it could lead to legal challenges.
“To me, the terms look unconstitutional,” said Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a group that advocates for free speech on college campuses, in an interview on Tuesday.
Corn-Revere said the language offers first responders, particularly police, wide latitude to judge and charge people with a crime.
“The constitution protects the right of the public to observe what public officials are doing,” Corn-Revere said.
The practical impact of the legislation could hinder the press from reporting on the scene or taking photographs.
Law enforcement and the Alabama District Attorneys Association supported the measure and helped to craft the legislation.
“Our first responders should be allowed to work in a safe place,” said Everette Johnson, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police. “They should be allowed the opportunity to do the job they are sworn to do without interference from outside entities, the people who are trying to prevent arrest, disruption of public safety services that we asked them to do.”
Civil rights groups, as well as Democrats on the committee, expressed concerns with some of the language in the bill, such as the 25 feet zone and possible free speech violations.
“This language makes protest impossible,” said Camille Bennett during the public hearing, founder and executive director of Project Say Something, a nonprofit that advocates against racial injustice. “How can a public servant accurately measure 25 feet and carry around a blow horn to instruct protestors to disperse in real time?”
Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, requested that Treadaway remove the provision in the bill that a person could be arrested for simply speaking ill of the officer or making an obscene gesture.
“The definition of first responder includes police officers who, at this time, already are supposed to carry a little thicker skin in terms of language used in whatever they are doing, so the standard is higher,” he said. “That is the reason you can’t be arrested for making comments already.”
Treadaway said after the hearing he planned to amend the bill and hold a committee vote on the legislation the following week.
“We want to blame police officers for every bad thing out there that happens,” he said as the discussion winded down. “Unfortunately, every profession has a bad apple. We cannot put every police officer in the same basket as those who do something wrong.”
Correction: The article was updated to correct the name of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). An earlier version misstated the organization’s name as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
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