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#NoHB1
drowning-medusa · 3 years
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(I'm reblogging this again, because our governor and literal manifestation of Satan, Ron DeSantis, just signed HB1 into law.)
So my state, Florida, just passed HB1, an anti-protesting law, aiming to designate most peaceful protests as riots. You might think with the capitol riots, "Well this is good! Those trump supporters tried to take over the capitol!"
This bill was carefully written so that its not a unilateral anti-rioting bill, but is instead a bill that is designed to target black and leftist organizers. In fact, this bill was written months before the fascist riots in the capitol.
In the summer of 2020, a group of black and leftist organizers in Pensacola Florida gathered around a popular bridge in town, while an artist spray painted the portrait of George Floyd and a portrait of Tyler Crawford (another victim, murdered by Pensacola Police Department in 2019). Around 600 people occupied this overpass/bridge for nearly 2 weeks, and cried out for justice against police brutality and racism, while the Mayor shouted out "All Lives Matter."
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In the first week of the Graffiti Bridge protest, some of our local black organizers moved a few blocks south, to the Pensacola 3-Mile Bridge, and blocked millions of dollars of products from being moved across the Pensacola bay, and blocked traffic for 30 minutes, until the mayor had them removed. On this bridge were Amazon trucks, Walmart trucks, and multiple food transportation trucks for other grocery chains.
Apparently these companies complained to Ron DeSantis, and this was one of the key reasons why DeSantis started drafting the anti-protesting legislation.
If this bill had been law last summer, all 600 protestors involved at the Pensacola Graffiti Bridge Black Lives Matter protest, and the 3-Mile Bridge protest, would have been arrested and charged with rioting.
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In this bill is language making it illegal to block roads. If you are involved with a protest that blocks any roads, bridges, or other infrastructure, you will be arrested and charged with rioting.
This bill doesn't stop with legislation making it illegal to block roads. HB1 also states that if a confederate monument is destroyed or damaged in excess of 200$, all people involved will be arrested and charged with rioting. This includes the non-intentional damage, and the police can even arrest people nearby, without due cause.
If you're involved in a protest or any event that happens to get violent, or causes physical damage to a business or location, exceeding 200$ (rules for how this damage is examined are nonexistant) for any reason, you can be arrested and charged with rioting.
Doesn't matter if you organized your event, or just happened to be nearby. You will be arrested and charged with rioting. It is up to the discretion of the officer to decide what constitutes as violent, and we all know how that will go.
With this bill becoming law, an officer can stop a peaceful protest, by declaring that there was damage exceeding 200$, or lie and claim that the event was "violent" with zero legal repercussions, and arrest every single person in the area, charging them with rioting.
It is up the the discretion of the officer.
Make no mistake, this is a direct result of Black people standing up for their right to live, last summer, and this is going to lead to a watershed movement of other states passing anti-protesting bills, just like HB1.
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