ATLANTA In an abrupt turn, Republicans in the Georgia Senate removed protections for police from hate crimes legislation on Monday night, just days after adding them in over the objection of civil rights groups and Democrats.
Calls for Georgia to remove itself from the list of four U.S. states without a hate crimes law have grown following the death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was pursued and fatally shot as he ran through a neighborhood just outside Brunswick in February.
In a hate crime bill, thats been brought on by incidents by police, and then to take them and put them in as a protected class ...
They also added data collection and reporting requirements for law enforcement agencies investigating hate crimes, something that Woodall and other proponents have called for.
Proponents have tried for several years to get hate crimes legislation passed, after the Georgia Supreme Court in 2004 struck down a state hate crime statute for being too broad.