Citizens expect elected officials, as public servants, to work toward making laws that benefit the people, but it seems as though legislators are not serving those who elected them.
In the 2021 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, Sens. Danny Carroll (R-Benton) and Michael Nemes (R-Shepherdsville) introduced an anti-rioting bill in the aftermath of the protests following the unlawful death of Breonna Taylor. The bill failed in the General Assembly, but that has not stopped its revival. Both Carroll and Nemes continue pushing the same policies toward becoming a law in Senate Bill 44.
The 2021 bill designates that a person would be found guilty of disorderly conduct in the second degree for insulting or taunting an officer and would be held in custody for a minimum of 48 hours and until they have faced a judge.
This bill presents several issues. First, it’s too broad, and there is not a clear line of what constitutes as “taunting” and “insulting.” It also seems unconstitutional to hold someone in custody for 48 hours for exercising their free speech.
According to the 2022 bill, insulting and taunting can be seen as the use of abusive, indecent, profane or vulgar language.
Although the bill provides some clear lines as to what constitutes an insult, there can still be blurred lines. For example, what law enforcement in Murray, Kentucky, determines as verbal harassment may differ from what law enforcement in Louisville, Kentucky, determines as verbal harassment.
Senate Bill 44 then defines rioting as an assembly of five or more people committing violent and unlawful acts that may cause public disturbance and risk of damage to public property or physical injury.
We at The News firmly believe the bill steps on people’s First Amendment rights under the guise of riot prevention.
Instead of reforming the police action that inspired those riots, legislators are working backward in their efforts toward reforming public response.
This bill isn’t meant to protect the people, it is meant to give law enforcement god-like power in its ability to stomp out demonstrations.
We included protests in there as well, because although the line between protesting and rioting may seem very obvious, it has been blurred as a result of politicization. Although the bill doesn’t mention protesting outright, if it does pass, protests would be impacted.
Overall, this bill shows us we can’t trust lawmakers to create common sense bills, because this bill is asking for citizens to change their conduct instead of asking for law enforcement to change theirs.
Not only does this bill step upon freedom of speech, but it also steps on people’s ability and readiness to protest and stand up for activist matters.
For people wanting to protest, they have to trust that the officers present will have a fair interpretation of insult speech. However, at this point in time, many people do not trust the police and are justified in having those feelings.
If this bill were to pass, it would make Kentucky a few steps closer to becoming a police state. If lawmakers worked with consideration for the public, they would work toward legislation that protects people’s rights to protest but creates a clear outline of riot protocol for law enforcement.
Lawmakers should know we are in an era where trust in law enforcement is at a low point. The answer to this issue should not be stricter laws regarding citizen conduct.
Kentucky legislators are not listening to whom they are supposed to be working for.
Since these lawmakers seem to live in their bubbles of privilege and remain ignorant to what their citizens need, we at The News believe we need to make it undeniably obvious.
Messages can be sent to the creators of these bills by going to legislature.ky.gov. This is an issue many people do not know about, so activism is another route that can be taken to enact change and the spread of knowledge, which only takes a couple of minutes.
If the public’s voice strengthens, then we have hope that legislators will start to take our requests for appropriate law enforcement reform seriously.
