Posted on 12/22/2005 8:01:58 PM PST by neverdem
Out of the murders of NYPD Detectives Dillon Stewart and Daniel Enchautegui, and the shootings of nine of their brothers in blue since June, some good has come. The state Legislature yesterday passed, and Gov. Pataki was set to sign, two new laws that will make the streets of New York far safer, both for police and the citizens they risk their lives to protect.
The legislative centerpiece is the Crimes Against Cops Act, the fruit of a Daily News campaign that began just 10 days ago as a cry for action after the slayings of Stewart and Enchautegui. We urged the Legislature to convene in special session to sharply increase the penalties against those who threaten, assault, shoot, attempt to murder or do murder a police officer in the line of duty.
The governor, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and both houses delivered. Under this law:
Murdering a cop will result in mandatory life behind bars. No chance of parole after only 20 years, as current law allows.
The minimum sentences for assaulting cops will double, from 31/2 to seven years for simple assault and from five to 10 years for assault with a deadly weapon.
Killing an officer unintentionally - in, say, a struggle or an escape - will get you 3-1/2 to 20 years. Current law leaves the possibility of probation.
Threatening a cop with a gun will be a felony, punishable by two to seven years in state prison, not a misdemeanor that carries no more than a year in a local jail. The News premised its campaign on the belief that tougher penalties could deter attacks on police. Criminals may well think twice before raising a hand, or a gun, against anyone with a badge. And those who don't get the message will at least be locked away from society for a good long time.
The second law enacted by the Legislature starts a long-overdue crackdown on the illegal possession and sale of guns. Its provisions had been stalled for years in wrangling between the Assembly and Senate, but the measure raced through after The News included it in the Stop Crimes Against Cops Campaign.
Until now, incredibly, it has been only a misdemeanor to possess as many as 19 illegal guns. Under the new law, possessing only three will be a felony with a mandatory prison term.
Similarly, traffickers who deal in hundreds of weapons have been able to avoid felony charges by selling them one at a time. This new law closes that loophole, allowing prosecutors to sum up all transactions over the course of a year.
Many deserve credit. The governor called the special session. Bruno and Sen. Marty Golden of Brooklyn drafted the Crimes Against Cops bill, and Silver led his leery Democrats to the bargaining table. All showed a statesmanlike willingness to compromise for the common good.
Pataki and Bruno dropped their effort to bring back the death penalty for cop killers, which the Assembly would not swallow, and Silver set aside his proposals for further regulating licensed gun dealers and banning armor-piercing bullets, which the Senate opposed. The News supports both capital punishment and gun control, and we will back their respective proponents in continuing the fight.
For now, however, the Crimes Against Cops Act is being added to the statute books. And New York, we pray, will be the better for it.
Does anyone know where to find the language of this law?
"Killing an officer unintentionally - in, say, a struggle or an escape - will get you 3-1/2 to 20 years. Current law leaves the possibility of probation."
This is a joke!
To put it mildly, a lack of laws is not the trouble.
Well, I would say to look at it this way. In your city you may not run across a violent crime ever. You might run across it once. You might even run across it several times in your life. But you don't get sent to it every single day. You don't go looking for it. So the two aren't really the same.
Corrections officers have traditionally had greater protections because their customers are already serving time and the incentive to not attack the officer has had to be higher. This is simply moving that theory to the street.
Great, another ill advised law. Do you know that as little as tapping a police officer when he is attempting an arrest is an assualt? (and such a charge is often fabricated). Seven years? Do you really think the laws on the books are not tough enough already?
Welcome to the official New York City Web site
The Transit Worker’s Union has ended its strike. MTA employees have been asked to return to work for their next shift. The MTA expects the system to be at or near full capacity by the morning. The City's transit strike contingency plan will be discontinued as of Friday, December 23, 12:01 am. All public schools will open at normal time on Friday and alternate side parking rules are back in effect.
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this is quite bad.
while I don't think cop-killers should have an easy time of things, I don't like seeing cops turned into some form of nobility under the law, and I don't like the feel-good knee-jerk anti-gun provisions.
RINOs in NY are only good for asking the question, "Did you bring the jelly?"
BOHICA
The above statement is EXACTLY what chills me personally about this new law.
Are our streets now PRISONS, and the police our guards?
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