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By Steve Gardiner & Angie Garner, Stand Up Sunday Leaders

In virtually every legislative session are some pet bills that look good but are deeply flawed and have the potential for tremendous harm. HB 14, Kentucky's so-called "Blue Lives Matter" bill introduced by Rep. Kevin Bratcher (R-District 29), is just such a bill. Bratcher's bill, which now has over twenty co-sponsors, proposes to include law enforcement in Kentucky’s Hate Crimes statute along with race, color, religion, sexual orientation, and national origin.

It is important to keep the purpose of hate crimes laws in focus. They are not just a way to tack on penalties for motivations considered particularly offensive. From their conception, such laws have been a way to recognize that certain types of violence impact not just individuals, but whole communities. Hate crimes discourage entire groups of people from exercising their rights. The long and ugly history of lynching is only the most blatant example of the impacts hate crimes have by intent. The origins of racist terror groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were in an intent to deter Black people from voting, assembly, speech and other rights guaranteed by the constitution.

HB 14 is political theater. It ignores the real problems faced by police officers, chronic over-policing in Black and low-income neighborhoods, and worsening police-community relations. It ignores our Commonwealth realities of mass detention. It ignores our extraordinary incarceration rates and already overcrowded jails.

Police work is difficult, at times dangerous. To be clear, willfully targeting a law enforcement officer because of their occupation is a heinous crime. However, Kentucky law already provides enhanced penalties for assaulting a police officer and treats the murder of an officer as a capital crime, without the burden of proving motivation. HB 14 is an attempt to legislate “respect” for law enforcement even while their benefits dwindle, training is inappropriate or underfunded, and their mission as it exists has led to overflowing jails, the disproportionate and aggressive policing of Black neighborhoods, and mutual mistrust between police and the most vulnerable communities in the state.

Meanwhile, this bill suggests Kentucky has a kind of trouble Kentucky does not have. According to the highly motivated tracking of the Officer Down Memorial Page, across our entire state no officers were killed in 2016. Even one would be too many, but HB 14 encourages a misperception that Kentucky and particularly Black neighborhoods in Kentucky are dangerous places for officers to work. The data suggests the opposite is true.

Charges of resisting arrest and intimidation are extraordinarily discretionary. HB 14 transforms discretionary misdemeanors, for petty offenses or no offense at all, into discretionary felonies. This is an obvious threat and offense against Black neighborhoods and youth who are already too aggressively policed. In the current political climate and according to early showings of how similar bills are enforced elsewhere, these discretionary felonies are all too likely to be realized on the bodies of peaceful protesters as well. In this way HB 14 fits well among the recent slew of reactionary anti-protest laws nationwide. Poor, homeless and mentally ill people are extraordinarily vulnerable to HB 14, as they may be less able to negotiate tense and frightening encounters with police, and less able to contest unjust charges.

The only purposes HB 14 serves are to allow legislators to make a public show of support for police that is show only, and to further the abuse of Black people and protesters. Kentucky doesn’t need this bill.