Tag Archives: Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office

Utah Lawmakers Accused of Seeking to Legalize Drivers Running Over Street Protesters

“Legislators are considering a bill that would let drivers off the hook for mowing down protesters.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-19-2020

Critics of the Utah bill fear that it might lead to an increase in deadly car attacks on protesters, as happened in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017. Photo: Billy Baldwin/Twitter

Utah lawmakers are being condemned this week for advancing a bill with provisions penalizing demonstrators who obstruct traffic during a “riot” while absolving any driver who injures or kills a protester, as long as the motorist was fleeing in fear of their life, which critics denounced as an attempt to legalize running people over.

John Hawkins, the Republican lawmaker who introduced the bill that the state legislature will consider during its upcoming general session, claimed that he doesn’t “think that purposefully using your vehicle to cause bodily injury is a normal situation that falls into this bill.” Continue reading

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