Image: Knoxville Police Department officers in riot gear gathered at the north end of Market Square in Knoxville, Tennessee. Image Credit: Brian Stansberry / CC
The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
Last Friday Governor Bill Lee (R-TN) signed the controversial Protecting Everyone Against Crime and Extremism (PEACE) Act into law, giving law enforcement across the state expanded arrest powers and instituting several other measures intended to address disruptive public protests and intimidation crimes in Tennessee.
The act will go into effect on July 1st of this year.
SB0030/HB0055, sponsored by Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon-District 17) and Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland-District 44), has been deemed “a clear and deliberate threat to the First Amendment freedoms of Tennesseans” by media outlets and journalistic entities.
As passed by state lawmakers, the legislation allows law enforcement to order that members of the public and media remain at least 25 feet away from officers actively engaged in the lawful execution of “official duties” involving traffic stops, active crime scene investigations and “ongoing and immediate” threats to public safety.
According to the bill text, “a person commits an offense who intentionally approaches, within twenty-five feet, a law enforcement officer after the officer has ordered the person to stop approaching or to retreat.”
The language of the bill notes that it is an affirmative defense that the individual did not and was not capable of receiving or understanding the officer’s order “under the conditions and circumstances that existed at the time of the issuance of the order.”
In an interview with The Tennessee Conservative, Sen. Pody shared that in prior discussions with law enforcement and the district attorney an issue that came up was that officers felt their attention was unnecessarily divided while making arrests in certain instances.
“They’re wearing body cameras. They’re not opposed to somebody filming them, even somebody yelling and shouting at them,” said Sen. Pody, “but they are saying listen, if I’m actually arresting somebody and I’m in that process right now […] and I’m having people all around me, I’m also watching to see if they have a friend…Are they pulling out a knife? Are they pulling out a gun themselves?”
The Republican Senator explained that law enforcement would like to see “a little bit of a buffer zone” and that the intent wasn’t to limit public or media observation but to help officers focus on doing their job.
“Law enforcement said [that] would give them a little bit more protection and help bring some peace and calm to the areas as well,” said Sen. Pody.
Other provisions of SB0030/HB0055 dictate the following measures:
• The crime of littering is redefined to include the distribution of flyers with the “intent to unlawfully intimidate” and the act of leaving “unsolicited flyers” on private or public property.
• The hanging of banners and signs over bridges and tunnels is criminalized.
• Law enforcement is allowed to make misdemeanor arrests of protestors identified via social media video footage.
• Law enforcement is given the right to demand an individual’s name or identification based on “reasonable suspicion” that the individual has violated state law or local ordinance.
• It is a Class C misdemeanor for an individual to give a false name to an officer who has lawfully detained or arrested them. However, it is not an offense if the person cannot or will not produce a physical form of identification to the officer.
In regard to these other provisions, Sen. Pody stated that the intent was to address certain intimidation crimes and public disturbances like what he has seen occur during the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Here in Nashville, we had some people who were here with hate groups and they had the right to literally putting signs on the interstates. They were blocking the interstates,” said Sen. Pody. “They were going to synagogues and they were throwing things at the synagogues and such.”
“I’m not trying to say littering is against the law. It already is,” he continued. “But on the other hand, if you take a gas can and you take a stick and a rag, and you put that in front of somebody’s house, that’s not just littering. That is intentionally trying to intimidate somebody.”
Sen. Pody shared that he didn’t like this legislation in its original form because he wanted to protect the First Amendment rights of Tennesseans, but he felt that through the amendment process he and fellow lawmakers were able to address the concerns they had.
“We cannot cut somebody’s rights,” Sen. Pody stated, “even if I don’t like what they’re saying, I’ve gotta make sure that their right to say it is defended. But they can’t use their First Amendment right to intimidate or to try and coerce somebody to do something that is against their rights.”
Critics of the PEACE Act argue that giving broad discretion to law enforcement is a violation of fundamental constitutional principles and that the legislation “presents significant risks of overreach.”
Media organizations and journalists have loudly opposed the PEACE Act, saying it interferes with both their ability to do their job and their ability to hold law enforcement accountable in certain instances.
“As you can imagine, journalists appear within 25 feet of law enforcement officers doing their day job every day,” said Lawyers Committee for Freedom of the Press Attorney, Grayson Clary.
“Maybe it’s a crime scene, a protest, a police response to a rally when it takes a turn,” Clary stated. “There’s a million-and-a-half reasons why reporters need to be in close proximity to law enforcement to do their own job. This gives police far too much discretion to shut that reporting down.”
According to Clary, similar legislation creating buffer zones between law enforcement and members of the public and media was passed in Indiana and Louisiana but is currently tied up in federal court.
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
