But if a bill proposed in both houses of
Gainer's bill would have made it a second-degree misdemeanor to block a public road without a permit and then would have made it legal for drivers to "unintentionally" run over protesters standing in the street. State Rep. Jayer Williamson proposed the law in the state House; he did not return a call from New Times. Gainer then proposed a companion bill in the Senate in February. Via email, Gainer refused to back down from the idea post-Charlottesville.
"The bill I filed during the last legislative session would have made it a crime for protestors [sic] to block traffic," Gainer wrote. "Comparing that legislation with the reprehensible actions of the evil person in Virginia is quite frankly lazy reporting. By simply reading the two-page bill, it’s clear that my intent was to protect motorists who unintentionally cause injury or death to a protestor [sic] blocking the flow of traffic. A person who intentionally uses their vehicle to injure or kill another should be prosecuted under the full extent of the law."
But the bill would have clearly placed the burden of proof on the injured — or dead — party to show that someone who attacked him or
The bill came amid a wave of GOP proposals in 16
New Times asked both Gainer and legislative aides in his office how the bill would have prevented terrorists from driving into crowds and claiming the attack was unintentional. No one has yet offered a specific response.
Andrea Gainey, a legislative aide in Gainer's office, said the bill and the attack in Charlottesville were "completely unrelated."
"This weekend was a terrorist attack," Gainey said. "There was a clear intent that he plowed into a group of people. I hope that would always be illegal. This bill created no new statutory requirements. Everything in this bill was already
Then why propose the measure if it didn't change existing law? Gainey declined to answer.
On March 2, Gainer told WUFT, North Central Florida's PBS affiliate, that the bill was written in response to anti-Trump protests in Miami and Tampa, where demonstrators shut down highways including I-95 and the MacArthur Causeway. Though Gainer said protesters have "every right" to express their views, he also claimed the demonstrators ran into the street "attacking" cars and trying to get hit.
“They should have every right in the world to protest the things they disagree with,” Gainer said. “But they don’t have the right to randomly go out into the interstates and attack the cars, beat on the windshields, jump up on the hoods, and act like they’ve been hit. In some cases, they set themselves up to be hit.”
(New Times covered those protests in Miami and filmed the demonstrators on the highway and did not see any proof of Gainer's claims that they attacked cars.)
Gainer tweeted his statement to New Times this afternoon. Williamson, meanwhile, has not said a thing.
