Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem Chad Perkins, R-Bowling Green, wants to give drivers legal protection if they hit protesters blocking the road.
He told Missourinet that under his bill, if someone is protesting in a street or public roadway and gets hit, they wouldn’t have civil recourse because they were in the roadway.
“We have a system in this country, both through the ballot box and through the court, where one can take those grievances and hopefully get some other sort of outcome,” said Perkins. “I just do not think that shutting down traffic in the middle of the road, where there are people taking their kids to school, people on their way to work, people on their way to the doctor, it’s not the place to do it.”
Perkins said he believes people have the right to protest, however not in the middle of the road.
“There are plenty of parks and right out in front of the Capitol here,” said Perkins. “There’s a nice big lawn and there are courthouse squares in the city, parks all over the state of Missouri that you can do those things in.”
Perkins said the proposal draws a clear line between intentional harm and legitimate self‑defense.
“It covers those civil issues,” said Perkins. “If you’ve committed a crime, that’s a whole different issue, right? You’re not necessarily looking to sue someone – you’re looking to put the person in prison if they intentionally ran into you. And that’s a key distinction I think that needs to be made.”
He told Missourinet that the proposal isn’t tied to the recent Minnesota incident — where an ICE officer fatally shot a driver during a traffic stop.
“But that’s a very different situation in the aspect that she was, in my opinion, impeding law enforcement from doing their job,” said Perkins. “A whole different situation. And so, I think it’s really designed to keep the citizenry from closing down traffic.”
Perkins said feedback has been limited so far, which he chalks up to the legislative session only now getting underway.
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