The Southeast Missourian
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) -- An officer in October scuffled with a man he tried to arrest, suffering a dislocated shoulder that required two surgeries and six months off duty.
The suspect got off with a misdemeanor.
In a similar assault of a police officer here last week, a man faces a felony charge that could potentially get him locked up in prison for years.
The difference between the two incidents is a new law that elevates nonweapons assaults of police officers and emergency personnel to a Class C felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison. The previous maximum sentence for the same crime was one year in a county jail.
The law went into effect just five days before the alleged assault on Thursday.
Officers like Daniel Seger, who was injured in the incident in October when he tried to wrest a screwdriver away from the man he was trying to arrest, applaud the new law.
“This man spent less time in jail than I did gone from work,’' Seger said.
The change was pushed by the Missouri Police Chiefs Association, said Cape Girardeau police chief Steve Strong, a board member of that group.
“There’s nothing that says when an officer places you under arrest that you have a right to elbow him in the head,’' Strong said.
In the incident last week, officer Aaron Brown was hit in the face by the elbow of the man he was trying to arrest. Brown was hurt, but didn’t require medical attention.
Under the new law, Anthony Southall of Marble Hill faces the stricter penalty because the injury doesn’t have to be debilitating or require medical attention; it simply has to cause pain, prosecutors said.
Strong said the tightened law could reduce the number of assaults on officers, which he says occur nearly every week.