Some question push for tougher penalties for attacking cops

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     (AP) – Missouri’s new governor, Eric Greitens, is pushing

to give the state the country’s toughest penalties for attacking a police

officer, reflecting similar efforts elsewhere.

     The former Rhodes Scholar and Navy SEAL’s pledge has played well with

Missouri’s law enforcement community, which has been on the defensive since the

2014 fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in

the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.

     Missouri already has harsher penalties for attacks against police officers,

and some say the new Republican governor’s push for even tougher ones is

unnecessary. Among them is a Republican state Sen. Bob Dixon, a legal expert who

helped craft revisions to the state’s criminal code that just took effect.

     Dixon says people who attack officers aren’t likely to look up the possible

penalties before the attack. He says such attacks are a “one-time deal”.




   

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