JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis was in St. Augustine on Friday to sign legislation to increase penalties for those who harass officers in the course of their duty and legislation to prohibit localities from using Civilian Oversight Boards to “drive an anti-police agenda.”
“You shouldn’t be in a situation where you’re at a traffic stop and you’re responding to a call of someone in distress and then you have people come trying to interdict or trying to harass you for performing your duty,” DeSantis said. “The other bill HB 601 and what it’s going to do is it really puts kibosh on these extra judicial investigations on law enforcement. They’ll setup these thins called citizen reviews boards, usually in these very tilted politically jurisdictions. They’ll stack it with activist, and they’ll just start reviewing things and putting people under the gun even if there’s no basis to do that.”
Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 184 and HB 601 into law.
SB 184 does the following:
- Prohibits the harassment of a police officer or first responder who is actively doing his or her job.
- This law pertains to any person who has received a verbal warning not to approach an officer and who approaches with the intent to interfere with their official duties, threaten with physical harm, or harass the officer.
- Under this bill, an individual who harasses a law enforcement officer in the line of duty will be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor.
HB 601 does the following:
- Prevents anti-police activists from carrying out extrajudicial investigations against law enforcement.
- Codifies the creation of “Civilian Oversight Boards” to ensure they are directed by a county sheriff or chief of police and are comprised of at least three to seven members, all of whom are appointed by the sheriff or chief of police.
- At least one member must be a retired law enforcement officer.
- Ensures that misconduct allegations will be investigated by those properly trained and equipped to handle such investigations, such as Internal Affairs Departments or the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission (CJSTC).
- Increases all county sheriffs’ base salaries by $5,000 for each population group.