Tuesday night, the Alabama House of Representatives voted 75-27 to pass legislation aimed at deterring riots by strengthening penalties for those who partake in violent uprisings.
Under the bill’s provisions, the crime of assaulting a first responder in the first and second degrees would carry a minimum of six and three months in jail, respectively. For those convicted of inciting a riot, the punishment would be to serve a minimum of 30 days in jail. An aggravated riot would be considered a Class C felony and carry a minimum three-month jail sentence.
Additionally, the first-time offense of unlawful traffic interference would be a Class A misdemeanor. Any subsequent offense would be a Class C felony.
House Bill 2, sponsored by State Rep. Allen Treadaway (R-Morris), was met with immense criticism from House Democrats, who argued that the bill would stifle the First Amendment protections of peaceful protest.
Treadaway vehemently pushed back against Democrats’ assertions by pointing to his more than three decades-long service in law enforcement, where he said he worked to protect the rights of those who conduct peaceful and lawful protests.
Treadaway told Yellowhammer News that the legislation was offered in response to the violent riot that occurred in downtown Birmingham during the summer of 2020.
The lawmaker is hopeful that his bill will be met with support in the upper chamber, where it stalled during last year’s regular legislative session.
“It’s halfway there and my hope is that it passes the Senate, where we obviously failed to get it done last year,” said Treadaway. “It’s passed early enough in the session and I’m just asking for an opportunity to get the bill out of the Senate where I did not get the opportunity last year.”
He added, “[W]e’re halfway there in protecting police officers. We’re protecting protestors, and we’re protecting firefighters and everybody that falls under that public safety umbrella. We’re seeing things happen in this country we’ve never seen. Protesting in the past did not have folks come in well-financed, well-organized planning this type of chaos that could result in folks dying, which has happened already in this country.”
By enshrining the bill into law, Treadaway asserted that it would serve to protect those who place themselves in harm’s way to protect the public.
“We have a 58 percent-plus increase on killing of police officers. We haven’t seen this number in over two decades. We’ve had an explosion of assaults on police officers. We’re struggling to retain and recruit police officers,” continued Treadaway. “We’ve got to get that, realizing what’s going on, and get back to where elected officials are supporting police officers instead of the demonization of the law enforcement profession as a whole. It’s having a chilling effect and we’re seeing a crime wave in this country and this is part of it.”
“So, this is a very important bill to me. I was on the frontlines,” the former police officer told Yellowhammer News. “I was not reading something or what somebody wrote. It’s what happened in Birmingham – this bill is a result of that experience and the facts around me… this is very serious. We could have had loss of life and we were lucky. We may not be lucky the next time. So I’m hoping we send a strong enough message that we put these folks in jail that are organizing and coming in hijacking peaceful protest, which is what I believe was going to occur, and then setting buildings on fire, looting stores and assaulting officers.”
Treadaway concluded, “We need to arrest them, we need to hold them, and we need to give mandatory jail sentences to them if we’re ever going to get a handle on this.”
State Sen. Shay Shelnutt (R-Trussville) is carrying companion legislation to Treadaway’s bill in the Alabama Senate.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
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