Following the shooting deaths of police officers in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, many critics of the Black Lives Matter are demanding protections for cops. Hence New York state assemblyman Ronald Castorina’s “Blue Lives Matter” bill, which the Staten Island-based Republican will debut Thursday. The head of New York’s 62nd District thinks Black Lives Matter protests and their derivations have turned cops into the targets of hate crimes. In this interview with the New York Observer, he argues for it to stop:
“It’s based on this climate in this country right now where police officers are being abused and they’re being disrespected, and we’re seeing they have a target on their back, in Louisiana and in Dallas,” he said. “You can envision this happening at a protest, where somebody might throw a rock or a bottle or a punch.”
If passed, Castorina’s bill would increase the possible sentences legally allowed for persons convicted of assault or aggravated assault against an on-duty police officer. This puts the proposed legislation in the company of similar bills in Texas and Louisiana, the latter of which was signed into law in May and went into effect on Monday.
The measures have drawn criticism from Black Lives Matter and other groups, especially since the majority of hate crimes — violent and otherwise — are perpetrated against members of racial, ethnic and religious minorities in the United States. However, as New York City councilman Joseph Borelli told the Donald Trump-friendly newspaper, violent acts against cops fit the bill: “I think that because people are motivated just because somebody is wearing a badge, that would qualify it as a hate crime.”
There’s no word yet on what the family of Eric Garner, the black man choked to death by a New York cop in Staten Island, has to say about Castorina’s bill.
(Via New York Observer)