Any Means Necessary
Sen. Tomes (800-382-9467) has introduced SB 285 which commands local officials to “use any means necessary” to clear roads of protestors who block traffic for more than 15 minutes. If he were really serious about law and order, he’d add a provision to the Indiana Tort Claims Act immunizing the officials involved with clearing the roads. (Although, there is an immunity provision for law enforcement activities that would probably apply to a lot of claims.)
Specifically, it requires a mayor (for cities), a town board (for towns), and a sheriff (for unincorporated parts of the county) to “not later than fifteen (15) minutes after first learning that a mass traffic obstruction exists in the official’s jurisdiction, dispatch all available law enforcement officers to the mass traffic obstruction with directions to use any means necessary to clear the roads of the persons unlawfully obstructing vehicular traffic. “Mass traffic obstruction” is defined as 10 or more people blocking traffic in violation of IC 35-44.1-2-13 (and that provision really just says that it’s a crime to obstruct traffic if you intend to do so.)
There are two main problems here. First is that it looks like Sen. Tomes and the General Assembly would be substituting their judgment for that of local officials. Local officials can probably handle making a judgment call about traffic without help from Indianapolis. Second, the “use any means necessary” makes it sound like he wants law enforcement to go all Kent State on people for blocking traffic. The Guardian caught wind of this bill, and that’s how this article makes it sound.
Opponents of the bill, introduced by a Republican state senator, rushed to the general assembly in Indianapolis on Wednesday afternoon to attend a hearing for the legislation, arguing that it could give a green light to the police to shut down protests harshly “even to the point of costing lives”.
For most protests, this bill will probably give the protestors better optics and more attention than they otherwise would have managed. Having to go a couple blocks out of their way would make most motorists a little grumpy about the people causing the inconvenience. Video of a police officer handling a protestor roughly for spending 15 minutes in the street will have the opposite effect.
It seems like a solution to a non-existent problem — I often encounter roads closed due to construction, bridges out, buried in snow, flooded, blocked by downed trees from a windstorm, waiting for a stopped train, snarled by farm equipment, or just backed up with traffic. Protestors? No, can’t say I’ve run into that. Are the legislators expecting a trend toward more protests spilling out into the street?
Even before Kent State they didn’t use language like “by all means possible” Are we trying to provoke outrage?
I remember late fall of ’69 Agnew gave a speech where he alluded to the government by street carnival atmosphere and the need to get tough with protesters. That was Fall pf ’69. By spring of `70 we had 4 dead at Kent State and 11 days later 2 students were killed at Jackson State this plus a total of 21 wounded students/protesters.
Nothing even remotely as radical as “all means necessary”, but his comments were still seen as a threat to expression and individual rights.
http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/108/111235/ch29_a4_d2.pdf (Spiro Agnew, The Dangers of Constant
Carnival, 1969)
Idiocracy, the movie, is beginning to look like an underestimate of our true potential.
In other words It’s time to start cracking some skulls.
This is not off to a good start.
When they use Malcom X’s own words (and those are famously his words), you know this is a direct slap at Black Lives Matter.
I have a friend who is saying that this blog and another report about SB85 is “made-up news”. I have found nothing in newspapers, etc about this. Can you please help me confirm? Thank you.
Get a new friend.
http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/why-was-there-a-protest-about-protests-at-the-indiana-statehouse/Content?oid=4522381
I said something similar a couple of weeks ago, but current national events have driven home the importance of citizen involvement in government, which has led me to put my state rep on speed dial and take even more seriously your reviews (and reader comments) about proposed legislation. I don’t know how much mail these guys receive, but I suspect that it’s about to increase substantially. This is a tremendous service and a true “citizen’s guide”.