New York legislator proposes hate crime bill for dubious calls to police against black people after it happens to him
The state senator is proposing a bill after facing a confrontation in his own district
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Your support makes all the difference.A New York legislator has proposed a bill that would make it a hate crime to place dubious calls to the police against black people — after it happened to him.
Jesse Hamilton, a Democratic state senator currently running for re-election, was campaigning in Brooklyn when a woman called the police on him. “I support [President Donald] Trump, and I see the difference between Democrat and Republican — and I see the difference between you and Trump,” she said, before dialling 911.
The confrontation quickly went viral after it was recorded and uploaded online.
A week after the incident, Mr Hamilton announced his new bill in a press conference — at the exact location where the police were originally called on him.
“These 911 calls are more than frivolous. These 911 calls amount to more than just a waste of police time and resources,” he said. ”These 911 calls are acts of intimidation”.
Mr Hamilton is not the first black lawmaker to have the police called on him while campaigning in 2018 — Janelle Bynum endured a similar experience in July — and he joins an ever-growing number of minorities who have had authorities called on them for no apparent reason.
In recent months, viral videos have shown two black men being arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia while waiting for an acquaintance, as well as multiple white women calling the police on black people for barbecuing, selling water outside and visiting their local pools, among other typical daily activities.
“Living while black is not a crime,” Mr Hamilton told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “But making a false report, especially motivated by hate, should be.”
“Our laws should recognise that false reports with hateful intent can have deadly consequences,” he added.
New York law already recognises false reports to police as a crime; however, under the new bill, victims would be able to report those false calls to police. If they are able to prove that a call was made to police with a hateful or discriminatory intention, that would then be considered a hate crime under the new proposal.
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