Photo Courtesy: The Missouri Times, Governor Eric Greitens
Missouri Governor Eric Greitens is pushing to toughen Missouri’s already stiff penalties for attacking a police officer, reflecting similar efforts underway in other states and pleasing many in Missouri’s law enforcement community.
Whether such changes are needed is debatable – among those who think they aren’t is a fellow Republican lawmaker and legal expert who helped craft revisions of the state’s criminal code that just took effect.
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“We can feel like we’re doing a great thing and we’re really solving the problem,” said state Sen. Bob Dixon, a leader on criminal law and chair of the chamber’s committee on criminal laws. “This does not solve that problem.”
Greitens, a former Rhodes Scholar and Navy SEAL officer who ran multiple campaign ads featuring him firing large guns, pledged during his first major policy speech to help pass “the toughest laws in the country for anyone who assaults a peace officer,” even though Missouri already has harsher penalties for people who hurt cops or first responders.
He also spoke about a “Ferguson effect,” which allegedly has made officers more hesitant about performing their duties since the 2014 killing of Michael Brown due to a fear of being questioned later on. Brown’s killing by a white Ferguson officer sparked months of protests and led to a Department of Justice investigation of the department. The officer wasn’t charged.
Lawmakers in more than a dozen other states and Congress have proposed making it a hate crime to assault an officer. Louisiana became the first state to enact such legislation in May, allowing prosecutors to seek stronger penalties when police, firefighters and emergency medical crews are intentionally targeted because of their professions.
Almost every state, including Missouri, already has tougher penalties for assaults or other offenses against police, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
What do you think? Should penalties for assaulting police be increased?