Attacking emergency medical services personnel, firefighters, and law enforcement officers when they are on the job would be considered a hate crime under a multi-sponsor bill proposed in Albany. The measure is a response to the growing number of assailants targeting uniformed workers.
“It’s difficult enough for emergency personnel to do their jobs without being subject to attacks by the people they are sworn to serve,” said Joseph DeStefano (R, C-Medford), the Assembly sponsor of the bill. “Sadly, these workers have been the subject of harassment and, in too many unfortunate cases, deadly assault that can’t be characterized as anything else but a hate crime.”
The growing need to protect emergency workers was driven home in 2022 by the murder of New York City paramedic Lt. Alison Russo-Elling, 61, who was stabbed multiple times in an unprovoked attack while on duty in Queens. "This deadly, senseless, broad daylight attack on a uniformed EMT member is a direct assault on our society," NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at the time. "It is the latest consequence of the violence that we relentlessly fight in our city."
The bill's Senate sponsor, Dean Murray, a Republican from East Patchogue, noted the waning amount of emergency workers in the state due to the difficulties encountered on the streets. “Our cops, EMTs, ambulance drivers, are sworn to protect the public,” he said. “They shouldn’t have to worry about being attacked simply because they are wearing a uniform.”
DeStefano blames the abuse against emergency workers on the defund-the-police and pro-criminal policies of many Progressive Democrats. “Politicians in this state, particularly from New York City, project an anti-law enforcement attitude that puts lives at risk,” DeStefano said. “These public servants are targeted simply because they are part of a group. This is the classic definition of a hate crime.”
Another bill sponsor, Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio (R, C-Riverhead), noted the difficulties in recruiting and retaining emergency workers, especially the volunteers that make up many of the state’s fire departments and ambulance companies. “We need to let them know that we have their backs, and they should not, under any circumstances, be considered part of a group that should be hated,” Giglio said.
As they have been since 2022, the hate crime bills are bottled up in committees in both chambers in Albany. Neither one has Democrat sponsors. “We need to take this issue out of the political realm and into the reality of what our public servants are experiencing on the street,” DeStefano concluded.