By Bill Carey
Police1
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida senator has introduced a bill aimed at preventing people from interfering with police officers, firefighters and other first responders at incident scenes.
State Senator Bryan Avila is the sponsor of the bill, WPLG reported.
The language in Senate Bill 1126 is focused on “prohibiting any person from approaching a first responder or remaining within a specified distance of such first responder, with specified intent, after receiving a warning not to approach.”
“Our police officers, our firefighters and our paramedics, they’re always certainly in the line of fire,” Avila told A Day in Miami, Newsweek reported. “This bill is really meant to create a sort of a buffer between somebody who doesn’t have the best intentions in mind, and them being able to conduct their business.”
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The 30-foot boundary appears to be arbitrary. Neither the bill nor Avila explains how that distance was determined to be the minimum distance to prevent interference.
The bill moved to the Criminal Justice, Community Affairs and Rules committees on Thursday.
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