that she and her friends were returning home to California after a camping trip with Carter pulled them over and wrote her friend a speeding ticket. Gibson said she didn’t like the way Carter acted during the traffic stop, saying he was “aggressive.” So she picked up a rusty “Back the Blue” sign she and her friends had found littered on the side of the road, waved it at the officer, stepped on it, and threw it in the trash.
“I just wanted to, I don’t know, make her feel better or something or stand up for her,” Gibson said. In a statement, the sheriff’s office claimed the “Back the Blue” sign was stolen, and that Gibson displayed “extremely aggressive and violent behavior towards the officer in a very busy parking lot.” They said that Gibson “purposely targeted the officer in a very unpeaceful manner,” and that deputy Carter was “singled out and attacked by this person because he was a law enforcement officer.”
“We are greatly disturbed by the hatred shown to law enforcement officers for no apparent reason,” the sheriff’s office added. “We are hopeful that this country can mend and heal from the division.”. That is quite literally not how hate crimes work. But in 2019, Utah passed a new hate crime law that provides harsher punishment for people convicted of targeting victims based on race, gender, and age, but also their “status as a law enforcement officer.
In a statement, the ACLU said the charge “sends an extremely chilling message to the community that the government will seek harsher punishment for people charged with crimes who disagree with police actions.” The statement continued with a warning that, in Utah, hate crime enhancements are being used to “single out unpopular groups or messages rather than provide protections for marginalized communities.
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