COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill creating a 15-foot buffer area around working law enforcement officers, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
House Bill 20 is designed to "[allow] first responders to focus on their duties and protect our community,” the bill’s sponsors stated. It forbids individuals from remaining within a 15-foot zone around officers after receiving a warning or if their presence interferes with police actions.
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The law also makes “obstructing official business” a fourth degree felony if the violation creates a risk of physical harm to a first responder, the Dispatch reported.
“In this legislation, we are not saying people cannot be helpful, and we are not saying people cannot record the event that is going on,” Rep. Phil Plummer told the Dispatch. “This legislation is simply providing the first responders the ability and opportunity to do their jobs more effectively and remain focused on the incident at hand.”
Have crowds or bystanders ever made it harder for you to safely do your job? Would a 15-foot buffer have made a difference?
Police1 readers respond:
- I don’t believe that a 15-foot buffer zone is what’s at issue here. I think it’s a matter of ego and antagonism. Ego on the part of police and antagonistic behavior by First Amendment auditors. Many departments have proven their officers know little about Constitutional law as it applies to a citizen’s 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments, as well as a total lack of understanding of the laws surrounding the refusal of an individual to ID themselves, which then embroils the department in a civil lawsuit they inevitably lose. We have to do better.
- Heck YES. If they aren’t confrontational during an arrest, they are crowding you at a crime scene, or worse at a protest when they are in spitting distance. This should be nationwide!
- Yes, while working mounted enforcement, and while ground officers needed assistance, crowds rushed in to see or video the police action. The mounted officers had to clear a large radius around the officers so they could perform their duties. Mounted officers while doing radius clearing were not able to directly offer immediate assistance to the ground officers. Mounted officers had to protect the safety of both the crowds and the officers at the same time and were at times very distracting.
- Absolutely crows have made it harder! When they’re in close range now you’re unable to focus squarely on the incident at hand, but have to split your focus and mind on the surrounding crowd for officer safety!
- Yes I have been in arrest situations where people have been right up on me while I am trying to get cuffs on. A buffer zone would be helpful.
- The buffer zone is good but I believe it should be bigger maybe up to 20 to 25 feet. Not only for the safety of the public and first responders but the privacy of any victims. I’ve seen these auditors try to climb in the back of an ambulance.
- Great law I am all for protecting law enforcement while they are doing their job. The excuse people use saying they are recording, is ridiculous. With today’s technology, you can record from well over fifteen feet.
- I don’t believe a 15-foot buffer zone should be and neither should people who are considered obstructing official business should be charged a felony police in my town have thrown obstructing official business citations out like candy.
- This will end up being the most abused law ever written. The state has criminalized being present during police activity. Who’s to say how close someone really was to first responders? Nobody is walking around with a tape measure. Is the officer required to give notice first? This will ultimately be abused by bad actors to arrest the people who are recording police activity.
- I agree with the law, but make it a felony to violate. Give it some teeth.
- In theory, such a law sounds helpful. In application, it will quickly be struck down as overly broad and unenforceable. Many agencies have been down this road before without judicial success.
- This law is not going to do a damn thing. Police have always had a right to separate crowds and arrest for obstruction, at least in Ohio. People will always crowd you and, now, take a video of you.
- Ret. From; Pasco County Florida Sheriff’s Office. It absolutely would have made a safer environment on thousands of calls for service.
- I think this is a slippery slope where it gives officers the ability to just keep advancing on people around them, encroaching on the 15-ft zone themselves with no limit, basically allowing them to say you can’t be anywhere near us at all. If it’s simply that people need to stay 15 ft back, that’s reasonable, but I see this being taken advantage of and used to make sure people are 30 ft back 45 ft back 60 ft back and then arrest them after they refuse to retreat against the officer’s advances.
So, anyone running from police can now say they were trying to maintain 15ft barrier.
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