Morgan Watkins

@morganwatkins26

Gov. Matt Bevin has signed a controversial "Blue Lives Matter" bill into law that makes it a hate crime to target police officers, putting Kentucky at the forefront of a new political trend.

Last year, Louisiana became the first state to extend hate-crime protections to police officers. Since then, a flurry of similar bills have been filed in other states, and Kentucky's own proposal zoomed through the Republican-dominated legislature this year.

Bevin gave House Bill 14 – unofficially known as the commonwealth's "Blue Lives Matter" bill – the final approval it needed to become law this week, although the measure won't go into effect until this summer. The fledgling law will add provisions for police and other first responders to the state's current hate-crime law, which already includes race, religion, color, sexual orientation and national origin as protected classes.

People who supported HB 14 pointed to the officers in Louisiana and Texas who were fatally ambushed last year as well as to law enforcement officials who have been killed in Kentucky over the years as examples of why this measure is necessary. But others have said this proposal is a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement, which continues to speak out against how police officers use lethal force against black citizens.

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This law received bipartisan support in the state legislature, although some Democrats spoke out against it.

Its opponents have said adding professions as protected classes could dilute the intent of Kentucky's existing hate-crime law. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky has suggested this new law potentially could be used to punish people who protest police brutality, and Chris Hartman of the Fairness Campaign has questioned why law enforcement is being added to the state's hate-crime law when the legislature hasn't done the same for transgender people yet.

Kentucky already has extra penalties for harming police officers on the books. Determining that an act qualifies as a hate crime wouldn't necessarily result in a more severe punishment for the person responsible.

Contact reporter Morgan Watkins at 502-875-5136 or mwatkins@courier-journal.com.

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