Kentucky GOP lawmakers are pushing legislation that would make interfering with first responders a more specific crime with stiffer penalties.
Senate Bill 104 states that if police give a verbal warning, a person must back up at least 25 feet if they are interfering, threatening or harassing an officer with the intent of causing “substantial emotional distress.” If the person fails to do so, they are guilty of escalating penalties — on the fourth offense, it becomes a felony.
“If the officer feels they are being harassed, they ask you to step away and back up 25 feet,” said GOP Sen. Matt Nunn from Sadieville. “That does not limit your First Amendment rights for speech or even [to] record. You can still record from 25 feet away. All this is saying is give me space to perform my duty so I can do it in a safe manner.”
The bill passed out of a Senate committee Thursday on partisan lines and now moves to the full chamber. The two Democrats who sit on the committee voted against the measure.
Interactions between immigration officials and civilians trying to record them or warn their neighbors have increasingly swamped social media. Videos showing federal officers trying to take phones or stop people from recording immigration enforcement have widely circulated. Lawsuits over immigration officer treatment of protesters and civilians in Minnesota and elsewhere argue federal officers are routinely violating constitutional rights.
Democratic Sen. Gary Clemons of Louisville said he understood the need for buffer areas for emergency medical technicians and firefights. But Clemons said he could not ignore the footage he has seen nationally before voting no on the bill.
“I could be 10 feet away, 15 feet away, 20 feet away. I'm not impeding them … If they're approaching me, I'm not moving. I'm just filming a situation, and we see it every day on the news right now,” Clemons said.
Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, a Republican from Smithfield and a co-sponsor on the bill, said she believed it is a “very proactive measure” and liked the bill for the same reason Clemons took issue with it.
“This would create that halo and that space that can protect people as they do their jobs and they have hard jobs to do,” Tichenor said.
Indiana passed a similar law, creating a 25-foot “encroachment” zone for emergency responders. The ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit on behalf of a journalist over the 2023 law, but both a federal judge and appeals court upheld it, saying the Indiana law did not “target speech,” just the act of approaching a lawfully-engaged officer.
Kentucky has already outlawed obstructing an emergency responder. The statute, put into law in 2018, says a person may not “intentionally obstruct or disrupt” police and other emergencies. It’s a violation on the first offense and misdemeanor after that.
Democratic Sen. Karen Berg of Louisville said she doesn’t take issue with the heart of the bill, but said she found it redundant with existing law, and mostly serves to increase penalties on an already underutilized statute.
“This is actually a difficult ‘no’ vote for me, because there's things in here that I think are very good,” Berg said. “We have a law already protecting first responders, and I don't think that we use it, so I don't know that we really need to be increasing penalties and making it even more sort of complicated.”
Nunn argues the current law isn’t specific and clear enough, so his law is needed to both make penalties more harsh and clarify when a person is obstructing police.
