It’s a rare occasion indeed when Republicans can take credit for anything in this legislative session because Democrats have the majority vote.
But Republicans successfully killed a controversial measure in committee Monday that sought to prohibit police from arresting criminal suspects for certain crimes to reduce jail population.
Crimes like rioting, vehicular assault through reckless driving, stealing property valued between $5,000 and $20,000, stalking, election forgery, bomb threats, impersonating police, or computer hacking.
The bill would only allow police to issue a summons and cross their fingers the perps showed up for trial.
Democrats also tried to argue that prohibiting these low level arrests would avoid police confrontation like what happened with George Floyd in Minneapolis.
If police can’t arrest people, they won’t kill them, is basically what Democrats argued.
The bill failed in a 6-5 vote in the House Finance committee, with two Democrats, Rep. Shannon Bird of Westminster and Rep. Matt Gray of Broomfield, joining the four Republicans on the panel in voting “no.”
Their Democratic colleagues were not pleased.
I am stunned about the death of SB273. https://t.co/IUnt1PMSsk
— Senadora Julie Gonzales (@SenadoraJulie) June 7, 2021
If not for Republican opposition though, this short-sighted bill would have passed.