Bill > A4741

This bill expands the crime of bias intimidation, which is committed when a person commits or threatens to commit a crime with the intent to intimidate someone based on their race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, or ethnicity, to now also include intimidation based on a person's status as a law enforcement officer. This means that targeting a law enforcement officer with a crime because they are a police officer, for example, can now be prosecuted as bias intimidation. The bill also clarifies that a permissive inference can be made if the target of the crime was selected because they are a law enforcement officer, and it adds a definition for "law enforcement officer" as someone whose public duties include the power to detect, apprehend, arrest, convict, and detain offenders. Additionally, it clarifies that a mistake about a victim's status as a law enforcement officer is not a defense to this crime.