The law makes attacking a police officer simply because he is a police officer a hate crime. Under current hate crime law, if I get in a fight with a black person and he dies I would be guilty of murder but not a hate crime because I wasn't motivated by a hatred of black people. I just wanted to kill this one black person.
How would they prove the person hated police, or attacked them just for being a police officer? Aside from the person straight up confessing that, if they were to go through the person's Facebook account and see images making fun of police, would that be considered? These are some of the things I wonder about with a law like this. Police are authority figures, and many people generally have problems with authority but that doesn't necessarily mean they hate cops.
Either way, it's still unnecessary. Assault on an officer is a felony in all/most states afaik, so I don't understand what they are trying to do here. Given the already-serious nature of such a crime, piling on or upgrading charges isn't really going to help the situation.
You could use these same arguments against hate crime legislation in general.
"How would they prove the person hated police, or attacked them just for being a police officer?"
I don't see how proving this would be any different than proving hatred in a hate crime case regarding race.
"Given the already serious nature of such a crime, piling on or upgrading charges isn't really going to help the situation."
I'm not sure what you mean by "help the situation". If you're against hate crime legislation then I understand adding charges further than 'murder' or 'assault' is pointless. But if you support hate crime legislation then don't you agree there should be further charges because it was done in the name of hate?
Are you arguing against hate crime legislation in general, or do you really think that hatred towards the police couldn't be a motive for some crimes?
