When the U.S. Congress returns in September from a summer recess, it is expected to consider legislation called the Blue Lives Matter Act that would make killing a police officer a hate crime, a step first taken by Louisiana earlier this year.
Debate in Louisiana over the law enacted in May pitted police unions, which supported tougher hate-crime sentences for police assailants, against civil rights groups, which felt police did not face the historic discrimination hate-crime laws were intended to address. Continue reading “U.S. police deaths build momentum for law to treat attacks as hate crimes”
