State Representative Lisa Davis (D), whose husband is a firefighter in Chicago, last month introduced House Bill 3458, which Lieutenant Randy Sutton (Ret.) of The Wounded Blue says "legalizes attacks on police officers if someone has a mental episode."
Other first responders – such as firefighters – would be spared.
Guns are excluded from the terms of the legislation that would "[provide] that it is a defense to aggravated battery when the individual battered is a peace officer and the officer responded to an incident in which the officer interacted with a person whom a reasonable officer could believe was having a mental health episode and the person with whom the officer interacted has a documented mental illness and acted abruptly."
Everything else is fair play in this attempt to validate aggravated battery on police officers, who are not trained to evaluate mental illness.
Still, Davis has found a couple of colleagues – Reps. Marcus Evans and Kelly Cassidy – to sign on.
"It is astounding that not only would this bill be proposed by anyone, but [it] has two co-sponsors, both Democrats by the way, to push this forward," Sutton notes.
Meanwhile, he says the police motto is "to serve and protect" for a reason.
"Law enforcement responds to any call for service," he accounts. "The most visible and the most service-oriented people in government are the police."
Sutton thinks the country is trying to put woke in the rear-view mirror, but stuff like this keeps popping up.
"The people are tired of the insanity of the political Left, and yet here we are, where another politician is putting forth a law that is so incredibly dangerous," the retired lieutenant laments.
Currently, a person in Illinois can be charged with aggravated battery if they attack "an individual whom the person knows to be a peace officer, community policing volunteer, fireman, private security officer, correctional institution employee, or Department of Human Services employee supervising or controlling sexually dangerous persons or sexually violent persons."
Davis' proposed change is reportedly unlikely to pass.
