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NEW LAWS ARE TURNING POLICE INTO ‘SUPERCITIZENS’  
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John Pfaff
May 8, 2024
The American Prospect
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_ A series of legislative and judicial efforts have removed police
oversight from oversight boards and communities. _

Miami police detain a pro-Palestinian protester during a rally
against the war in Gaza, October 13, 2023, in Miami., AL DIAZ/MIAMI
HERALD VIA AP

 

_This story was produced in partnership with The Garrison Project
[[link removed]], an independent, nonpartisan
organization addressing the crisis of mass incarceration and
policing._

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed
[[link removed]] two
bills gutting the informal and formal oversight of the police. Senate
Bill 184 [[link removed]], the
“Impeding, Threatening, or Harassing First Responders” Act, makes
it a misdemeanor to stand within 25 feet of the police or other first
responders if told to move, if the purpose is to interfere with,
threaten with physical harm, or otherwise “harass” them.
Harassment is defined to include “substantial emotional distress,”
and what counts as distress or who makes that determination is
not defined
[[link removed]].

House Bill 601
[[link removed]], simply
titled “Law Enforcement and Correctional Officers,” takes aim at
civilian oversight boards, local committees set up by cities to
provide outside supervision of police departments. Under the new law,
the existing boards would be re-established and any new ones created
under new rules. Each committee can have three to seven members, but
one member must be a retired law enforcement officer.
Importantly, _all_ members must be appointed by the local sheriff or
police chief.

Both of these bills are designed to make the police more impervious to
any meaningful oversight. The anti-oversight intent of the House bill,
which requires the police to appoint the civilians who oversee the
police, is transparent on its face. It follows moves by Arizona, which
in 2021 adopted two laws
[[link removed]] requiring
that police and police-trained civilians make up 67 to 100 percent of
civilian oversight boards, and Tennessee, which gutted
[[link removed]] local
police oversight boards in 2023. The Senate bill’s impact may be a
little less obvious, but it’s still there. Twenty-five feet may not
seem like a significant distance, but in a city it means anyone
videotaping the police will likely have to stand across the street
(and thus behind rows of parked cars and traffic) or so far down the
block that officers can form a wall, blocking view. And even if
someone can get a good shot of the police at work, the open-ended
harassment language leaves them with plenty of room to argue that the
person filming them is doing so to make them feel distress. One
Florida House Democrat submitted a sarcastic amendment to rename SB
184
[[link removed]] “The
I Don’t Want the World to See the Police Kill an Unarmed Innocent
Man Like George Floyd Again, So I Want To Protect Bad Cops and Violate
Free Speech Act.”

Particularly in the years since George Floyd’s murder in 2020,
Republican state governments have targeted criminal legal reform in
their more liberal cities.

Florida joins other states in imposing a distance ban on videotaping
the police. Arizona passed an eight-foot ban in 2022 (although a
federal judge struck it down
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2023), and Indiana adopted a 25-foot ban in 2023, which was recently
upheld
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a Trump-appointed federal judge. At least one person has already been
arrested
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it. Another 25-foot law just passed the Louisiana House
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approval from the Senate. Getting Gov. Jeff Landry’s signature on
the bill is a sure thing: Since being sworn in in January, he’s been
reversing the state’s criminal justice reforms, which, as Axios
just noted
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“are credited with Louisiana shedding its title as the No. 1 most
incarcerated state in the world.” Louisiana is also on the cusp of
passing SB 482
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would gut the state’s public records laws that have yielded numerous
stories about police violence, including the 2019 death of Ronald
Greene
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the hands of the Louisiana State Police.

These laws reflect what criminal justice reporter and author Jessica
Pishko has dubbed the “Law Enforcement Baronial Class
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or, to use a term from academics Brittany Arsiniega and Matthew
Guariglia, “police as supercitizens
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wave of laws targeting oversight, police were often shielded from
meaningful supervision. The “Law Enforcement Officer Bills of Rights
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made it hard for the public to access disciplinary records, protecting
potential abusive officers from accountability. And the
notorious doctrine
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“qualified immunity
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has meant that while the police are called on to enforce the law, they
are often above it as well. Even the liberal-leaning Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals held that officers could not be sued for
allegedly stealing $225,000
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executing a search warrant. Police are also regularly granted perks
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other government employees do not receive.

These laws are also part of a widespread effort by
Republican-dominated state legislatures to use their powerful
“preemption
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thwart local efforts at reform. State preemption gives state
governments the power to reverse local legislation that the state
officials dislike. Many states give some of their cities and counties
a degree of “home rule
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protection, but these protections tend to be fairly thin.

Particularly in the years since George Floyd’s murder in 2020,
Republican state governments have targeted criminal legal reform in
their more liberal cities. Many of these reforms have sought to rein
in reforms targeting police, and the ability of cities to cut police
budgets
[[link removed]].
Recently, Republican-dominated state legislatures have also sought to
clip the wings of reform-minded prosecutors, who often face intense
opposition from punitive-minded police departments and police officer
unions. The Georgia legislature recently revived
[[link removed]] a prosecutorial oversight
commission that had been struck down
[[link removed]] by
the state supreme court and was seen by some as designed to target
reform prosecutors [[link removed]]. Florida is also looking
into changing the electoral maps for electing prosecutors, clearly
with an eye to gerrymandering reformers
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of their jobs. And in June of 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB
17
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which makes it easier for people to seek the removal of local DAs in
state court. A Texas judge just ordered
[[link removed]] José
Garza, the reform-minded DA of Travis County (Austin), to appear in
court to formally answer claims he’s refusing to prosecute abortion
cases. The May 16 court date is thought to be the first of its kind
under HB 17.

The state laws cracking down on reform in cities and the elevation of
the police to the baronial class pose serious risks to any effort to
make our criminal legal system more racially just, especially given
that white supremacist organizations have been aggressively seeking
to infiltrate police 
[[link removed]]departments
[[link removed]].
But there’s a much bigger, existential threat. States are handing
police above-the-law powers in the shadow of Gaza protests that face
violent crackdowns
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and in the run-up to a 2024 election where one candidate who
has extraordinary police
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support
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unlikely to accept the election results.

_John Pfaff is a professor of law at Fordham University and author of
‘Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve
Real Reform.’_

Used with the permission © The American Prospect, Prospect.org
[[link removed]], 2024. All rights reserved. 

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