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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | January 6, 2017 11:28 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator John C. Rafferty, Jr. |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Evading Arrest or Detention by Foot |
| In the near future, I will be introducing legislation created as a result of the death of Officer John Wilding of the Scranton Police Department. Officer Wilding died from injuries he suffered while chasing three teens after an alleged robbery in July of 2015. A thorough review of our existing statutes demonstrated that we currently prohibit fleeing from an officer in a vehicle and struggling with an officer attempting to place an individual under lawful arrest; however, our statutes are silent with respect to fleeing an officer on foot and placing the officers’ or innocent bystanders at risk of injury. My bill will create a new offense of “Evading Arrest or Detention by Foot”. My legislation is modeled after a similar statute in the state of Texas. When individuals flee from police officers attempting to lawfully place them under arrest, they create a risk of harm to not just to police but to innocent bystanders and themselves, my legislation will attempt to address that. Please join me in co-sponsoring this important measure. Thank you. |
Introduced as SB838