Tennessee lawmakers pass buffer when approaching police, limits aimed at neo-Nazi activity

Yahoo

22-04-2025

A law that could ban standing within 25 feet of a police officer after being told to retreat has passed the Tennessee General Assembly.
Passage of the legislation is prompting First Amendment concerns from some lawmakers and free speech experts who say that such laws make observing police misconduct nearly impossible and protests more dangerous.
Following a rash of intense neo-Nazi activity in downtown Nashville in the summer 2024, House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, filed House Bill 55, known as the Protecting Everyone Against Crime and Extremism (PEACE) Act. The legislation seeks to address a number of methods that were used by neo-Nazi members to intimidate Nashville residents over the summer in 2024.
It passed the House on April 21 in a 70-20 vote and in the Senate on April 14 in a 30-2 vote.
The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, and comes after years of historically large protests at the state Capitol.
The bill criminalizes "intentionally (approaching) within 25 feet" a law enforcement officer who is conducting either a lawful traffic stop, an active investigation of "the scene of an alleged crime," or an "ongoing and immediate threat to public safety," after being told to stop or retreat.
It also adds misdemeanor penalties for littering or trespassing on personal property with the intent to intimidate, as well as for giving a false name to law enforcement after being detained and transporting people within the cargo area of a box truck and placing signs on roadways.
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The bill also expands the circumstances in which an officer can arrest or detain an individual for a misdemeanor to include when an officer only has "probable cause" to believe someone committed an offense, "regardless of whether the offense was committed in the peace officer's presence," and requires that officers note their reasons for not issuing a citation to someone upon arrest.
A number of activities addressed in the bill relate to the series of repeated neo-Nazi marches and appearances in Nashville, including one instance where white supremacist group The Patriot Front marched up the steps of the state Capitol on July 6, chanting "deportation saves the nation" and "Sig Heil," a German phrase and Nazi salute which means "Heil (to) victory." The group arrived there after being transported in the back of U-Haul box trucks.
Concerns surrounding the bill largely rest on the buffer portion of the law as lawmakers and First Amendment experts across the country have called out the law as an unconstitutional barrier for journalists and residents observing and reporting on potential police misconduct, and as a way for law enforcement to crack down on constitutionally protected protests.
"Let's start with the name: the PEACE Act is Orwellian," said Rep. Aftyn Behn, D-Nashville, in a statement following the bill's passage at the Senate on April 21. "The bill isn't about peace — it's about suppressing dissent, silencing protest, and expanding unchecked police power."
Behn filed an amendment to the bill that would have removed the buffer portion of the law, but the House rejected the amendment. She later commended her fellow Democrats in the Senate for unanimously voting against the bill, calling it a "clear stand for the First Amendment and the right to protest."
"This isn't an antisemitism bill — it's an anti-civil liberties bill. It's a direct response to years of protest, organizing and public visibility — from racial justice to reproductive freedom to pro-Palestinian solidarity," she said. "The GOP is trying to criminalize movement work, not protest public safety."
In a statement, Lamberth defended the bill as a way to help law enforcement perform their duties better.
'A 25-foot buffer zone for working law enforcement is a reasonable distance to protect the public's safety and ensure our officers are able to perform their duties unobstructed," Lamberth said.
Under current Tennessee law, it is already a crime to obstruct law enforcement from carrying out official duties.
Similar buffer-zone laws in Arizona, Louisiana, Florida and Indiana, which have no exception for journalists, have all faced public and legal pushback on First Amendment grounds.
More: Leaders wrestle with solving Nashville's neo-Nazi problem while protecting free speech
In Indiana, a buffer-zone law faced two civil rights lawsuits, and was struck down on the second as unconstitutional in September. In Arizona, a 2022 buffer-zone law that banned filming an officer within 8 feet was similarly struck down.
Most recently, in Louisiana, a nearly identical law was temporarily blocked by a federal judge in late January as it faces a lawsuit by multiple news organizations and First Amendment lawyers.
Emily Hockett, a legal fellow with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit legal group whose attorneys sued the state of Louisiana over the buffer law, said in a statement that the Louisiana law was 'troubling.'
'The law has no exceptions,' she said in the statement. 'It does not matter if the officer's order to stop approaching is objectively unreasonable. Nor does it matter if complying would make observing law enforcement activity impossible, because it would obstruct the view of onlookers…Finally, it does not matter if the person being told to stop approaching is a journalist.'
She said the author of the Indiana version of the same law had previously stated that the law was created in response to the riots of 2020 that followed the murder of George Floyd — a murder that may not have prosecuted or come to light if not for the woman who stood near the crime to film it.
'The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which includes Indiana, has held that there is a First Amendment right to record government officials performing their duties in public," Hockett said. "Though this law does not mention recording law enforcement explicitly, it poses an acute challenge to the right to record. Police would be able to arrest a journalist quietly and peacefully filming nearby, regardless of whether that journalist was interfering with police duties.'
In a statement, Lamberth said that the First Amendment concerns were unfounded.
"This legislation was carefully crafted to guarantee everyone's First Amendment right is protected," said Lamberth. "You can be present, say and record anything you want — that is your constitutional right — but you can't hinder or interfere when a police officer is carrying out their official duties.'
Similar legislation was passed by the Metro Council in Nashville in September to address the neo-Nazi activity, though no buffer laws were included.
The bill marks the second time Lamberth has addressed neo-Nazi activity at the state level, with the first being the House Joint Resolution 963 passed in March 2024.
The USA TODAY Network - Tennessee's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.
Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at [e-mail], by phone at 931-623-9485, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee lawmakers pass limits aimed at protests, neo-Nazi activity