State bill targets pranksters

This is how far we’ve progressed as a society: grown men pretending to urinate on the side of buildings, in full public view, just for a laugh.

Talk about knee-slapping hilarity.

Because it’s so much fun to act like you’re doing something illegal in front of an officer, hoping to prompt some sort of response while your best buddy films the entire episode to post online.

Do a quick search and you’ll find all sorts of this nonsense – people pretending to sell or consume drugs, hit their fake girlfriends or otherwise break the law while unsuspecting officers catch them in the act.

Sometimes, the police are good- natured and laugh at the joke. Other times, they cuff the pranksters and write them tickets.

Community-police relations are already strained nationally. Such video pranks that make our men and women in uniform look like dupes can only further erode the respect they deserve from the law-abiding public.

Enter state Rep. Cheryl Grossman, R-Grove City, with legislation aimed at combating the problem.

Criminal penalties

The former suburban Columbus mayor recently introduced House Bill 209, which would allow criminal penalties for those who simulate illegal activities or “cause a false belief that a crime is being committed,” according to an analysis by the state’s Legislative Service Commission.

“The bill expands several existing offenses to prohibit persons from producing public alarm with simulated criminal activity or causing law enforcement officials to investigate phony crimes.”

Grossman submitted sponsor testimony to the House’s Judiciary Committee recently for the chamber’s first hearing on HB 209.

In it, she offered a list of some of the pranks that are taking up officers’ time – “pretending to urinate against a building or other object ... smoke from pipes (bongs) commonly used for marijuana. ... Some have purchased and staged ATMs so they could pretend to steal from it or steal the machine itself.”

Such activities divert law enforcement from real crimes or emergency situations. Sometimes, the pranks cause accidents or confrontations with other members of the public.

“Law enforcement in our communities is necessary and essential to everyday life,” Grossman said in her submitted testimony. “Without the protection and enforcement of the law our communities fall subject to increased crime and public disorder. We rely on the service of these men and women to keep our communities safe. With the growing influence of the Internet and YouTube, our law enforcement is being pulled from serious violations of the law to attend to ‘prank’ crimes that are being videotaped and find their way on the internet. The issue we are trying to address with this piece of legislation is the practice of individuals who pretend to be committing a crime for the sole purpose of eliciting a reaction from law enforcement or members of the public, so they can post to social media sites.”

She concluded, “These incidents serve no legal purpose except to amuse those who are staging the crime, and therefore I ask for your support on HB 209.”

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.