The President of the New Jersey State PBA released the following statement today on the signing of S3201/A2378 into law:
We are grateful to Governor Murphy for signing this critical officer safety bill into law today. There are no circumstances where assaulting an officer is acceptable. But when those assaults include the use of body fluids to attack an officer the State needed to speak out clearly that doing so would lead to real punishment. This law makes it clear that you will not get away with attacking, spitting on or worse to a law enforcement officer in New Jersey. No community is truly safe if we don’t protect the life and safety of our officers.
The new law not only increases the penalties for assaults to a second-degree offense but it also means real jail time by restricting access for the attacker under the No Early Release Act and Pretrial Intervention Program. The law also ensures that inmates who use body fluids to attack a correctional police officer will have to serve that penalty on top of their existing sentence and it protects our members by establishing a process for the attacker to be tested for communicable diseases.
We owe all the bill sponsors, Senator Gopal, Senator Greenstein, Assemblyman Spearman, Assemblyman Sauickie and Assemblyman DeAngelo, our gratitude for fighting so hard to get this bill to the Governor.