Governor Ron DeSantis and legislative staff were recently hosted by St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick and his department for the official signing of House Bill 601 (HB 601) and Senate Bill 184 (SB 184).
Legislative literature states that SB 184 forbids harassing police officers or other first responders when they are actively carrying out their duties while on duty.
‘This law pertains to any person who has received a verbal warning not to approach an officer and who approaches with the intent to interfere with their official duties, threaten with physical harm, or harass the officer,” they stated.
A second-degree misdemeanor will be levied against those who break the law. Anti-police activists are prohibited from conducting extrajudicial investigations against law enforcement by House Bill 601.
Furthermore, the establishment of civilian monitoring boards is codified in HB 601.
These boards, which are mandated by law to be chaired by a county sheriff or the chief of police, will be made up of three to seven members who have been selected by those authorities, at least one of whom must be a former law enforcement official.
According to a news release announcing the signing, this “ensures that misconduct allegations will be investigated by those properly trained and equipped to handle such investigations, such as Internal Affairs Departments or the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission.”
Additionally, the law will raise the base pay of county sheriffs by $5,000 for every demographic category.
“The signing of Senate Bill 184 simply puts the exclamation point behind what ‘Back the Blue’ truly means in the State of Florida,” Hardwick stated.
Hardwick clarified that laws provide boundaries, a “protective” region, so that law enforcement officers can carry out their duties as soon as they arrive because they “never know” what to expect when responding to a service call.
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Hardwick thanked DeSantis and said that Florida was the state that was friendliest to law enforcement in the nation.
“We’re blessed in St. Johns County to have this partnership and relationship with our community that stands behind the blue, just like you governor,” he stated. “That being said, this simply gives us the law and latitude to enforce if someone doesn’t want to listen and doesn’t want to pay attention as we continue to do our jobs.”
