New Orleans authorities have arrested a person for what is reportedly the first time using the state’s new “Blue Lives Matter” provision for hate crimes. His warrant indicates the hate crime charge stems from slurs he directed at officers and a witness after banging on a window at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter, causing the window to crack. But Louisiana’s broad hate crimes law already made it unlawful for offenders to select victims based on their “actual or perceived membership or service in, or employment with, an organization”. The “Blue Lives Matter” law, passed last legislative session, is now being used to police language towards officers.
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Leston Smith, the security guard listed in Delatoba’s booking records as a victim in the incident, said Wednesday he parks his vehicle near the Royal Sonesta for work and was near there when he heard and saw a man believed to be banging on the hotel’s window.
ACLU Louisiana maintains that the racial slurs Delatoba shouted at police officers were “deeply offensive”, but “not illegal and in fact … protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution”.
Arrest records listed the hotel, the security guard and the NOPD desk officer as victims in the incident. “Any law that infringes that freedom is a violation of our Constitutional rights”. “The District Attorney’s Office will make the final determination on charges in this investigation, as it does in all investigations”.
Delatoba was arrested after allegedly damaging property at the Royal Sonesta Hotel and spouting off slurs at officers..
Allison Padilla-Goodman, of the ADL, said the verbal attack was “horrible”, she said it did not attach to an underlying crime – which state law requires.
“I mean this for law enforcement as well as for community members”.
To apply the hate crimes statute in this context, the underlying offense of simple criminal property damage would have to be committed in connection with the intent to discriminate against the police officers. Moreover, the group anxious that adding another variable, such as occupation, could water down the hate crimes law.
Louisiana is among 45 states (and the District of Columbia) to have laws against so-called “hate crimes”.
“While it’s terrible that the law enforcement officers had to encounter this behavior and hear these epithets, it’s not illegal”.
Gamble said Thursday the NOPD is in the process of training officers and supervisors on the recently updated law “to ensure it is applied properly moving forward”.
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“A hate incident could be hate speech, hate thought, and while we would love for those things to not exist, we’re not going to create legislation to criminalize thought and speech”, Padilla-Goodman said. “Proving a hate crime is tough”, she says.
