Within this, I’ll purely for now be breaking down the most recent bill proposed by the Representative, and elaborating on the mistakes, both grammatically and legally.
The Bill In Question “A bill to define Civilians Detainment”
Section 2: Only persons so designated by state law are to conduct arrests, detain persons, issue citations, and other duties that require this bill to come to undertake shall do these activities.
Let me just preface this with, ‘What?’ This entire section is already under law, and has been since close to the beginning of Firestone. Not only that, it’s quite hard to decipher what is intended by the section on your first reading. Bills are meant to clarify, (though historically they usually don’t) this one manages to already confuse the entire point of the bill in the 2nd Section.
Section 2A: Any person who is in violation of section 2 of this bill shall be eligible for any caused Further, It will be immediately upon the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) becoming aware of a violation of this act, they shall immediately remove any certification, issued to the person responsible for such a violation of this act by POST.
Section 2B: Further, No person who has violated this act shall be granted any law certification, by POST or the DOJ: BAR.
Again, ‘What?’ This make no genuine sense. It’s rife with run on sentences, and clear lack of English language knowledge. Section 2A, should surmise that, POST, upon being informed about a breach of this bill, should immediately revoke the individuals POST certification and be blacklisted.
The guidelines surrounding POST already do this, and have been enacted multitudes of times before this bill, why now attempt to make this, when it’s already been done? Not only that, POST cannot (To my knowledge, correct me if I’m wrong) give a “law certification” which is such a broad term, one could encompass anything into it.
Section 2C: This act shall in no way limit the ability for any other entity to so eligible by any other law from enforcing that law. However, such as any and all enforcement shall be limited to activities that do not involve any activity detailed in section 2 of this act.
This first sentence makes no sense, two separate thoughts are merged at the wrong point with no clear distinction between the two. The entire section itself makes no sense and confuses this bill even further, just in its definitions. This section should be detailing that “This act shall in no way limit the abilities of those later defined in Section 3 from enforcing the law.” But even this is a stretch as the second sentence makes genuinely no sense, you can see the resemblance of an idea but there is no execution or support to it.
Section 3: Pursuant to section 2 of this act, only the members of the following groups shall be designed to conduct arrests, detain persons, seize items, search things, or issue citations. And so detailed on the bottom of the section will be the MDT for Section 4.
“Designed” not “Designated” this can be used to just break this bill, where these groups that are defined, are “designed” to enforce the law, this bill sets out to “designate” their duties with regard to, arresting, detainment, seizure of items, searching and frisking, and the issuing of citations. This section also crutches on Section 2, which as we’ve already discussed makes no goddamn sense.
From here it is assumed you have read Section 3 and have seen the groups that this Bill is defining, so if you haven’t go do so, thanks.
Section 3A: The members of the groups detailed in section 3 of this act shall be designated as a “Law Enforcement Officer”. Additionally, these groups shall be recognized as “Law Enforcement Agencies”.
This section is the largest issue in this entire bill, it reclassifies the FBI and DHS from being Law Enforcement Agents to “Law Enforcement Officers” which, if it was passed, would null those previous classifications and could cause severe issue in their operation. This directly impacts the FBI as it has specific exemptions from laws that this could now directly impede.
Section 3B: No person, aside from members of the groups detailed in section 3 of this act, shall be designed a “Law Enforcement Officer”.
This section then also causes the issue of, if another agency is created, this bill doesn’t cater to it at all, with no universal definition of LEO’s and LEA’s. This creates more red tape for the creation and establishment into law of new agencies down the line, if they are ever created.
Section 4: No person shall be detained from LEOs than no longer than five minutes for any offense which involves the Mobile Database Terminal so detailed in section 4 of this act. Or shall be in violation in Section 2.
Section 4A. No person shall be harmed within the Custody of Law Enforcement Officers while being detained. Or shall be in partly violation in Section 2.
Section 4B. No Law Enforcement Officer shall hold a person detained for no longer than five minutes at a time for each crime. Or shall be in violation in Section 2.
This entire section hinges on Section 2, which is a poor mess of typing mistakes, and grammatical errors. This section also limits LEO detainment times, which would require a rewrite of multiple laws in regards to classification of crimes and their direct punishment. This bill sets out to cause chaos in this realm and would directly impact the entirety of POST, the MDT, and quite possible hundreds of past Bills.
Section 4B, is nearly, exactly the same as Section 4. Within this, Section 4A is already in legislation in a separate form, but still applies directly to officers detaining civilians. This would also only impact LEO’s, which means that if a court were to sentence someone to manslaughter or any offence of that nature, they would still be able to do so. Which means this bill has another loophole, where an officer of a civilian can take another to court and have them sentenced rather than an officer purely arresting them, so they can have the exact same amount of time as they would normally.
Section 6: This legislation shall go into effect immediately after the passing by both Houses and Governor described by law.
Another loophole. This should be clearly outlining that it needs to be passed by both Congress and the House of Representatives, but “both Houses” is an obtuse phrase which doesn’t specifically identify the parties required to pass this bill. Not only that, it needs to then clearly get the approval by the Governor to be placed into law, so it could then pass through both legislative chambers but fail with a Governor vetoing it.
This bill is inherently flawed, with multiple issues that clearly need rectification. Although it is unlikely to pass, this bill is flawed, and the fact of the matter is, we voted to allow these bills to be drafted. I call upon each individual in the next election, or next opportunity to voice support for new Representative and Congressional candidates to vote, and be heard. Thanks.
