Grabbing Officers' Weapon a New Crime Under Senate Passed Bill
By Jim O’Sullivan for the State House News Service
       A proposal toughening punishments against suspects who try to grab a police officer’s weapon earned the Senate’s unanimous endorsement Wednesday, and backers said they expect similar enthusiasm in the House.
       The bill (S 1336) amends the state’s resisting arrest law. It mandates not more than 30 months in jail or a $500 maximum fine, or both, for anyone grabbing any police weapon other than a firearm during a lawful arrest. For suspects who seize a gun, the penalty reaches up to five years and $1,000; those who attempt to grab a firearm can see 30 months and $500 in penalties.
       Between 1994 and 2003, 52 of the 616 law enforcement officers killed feloniously in the line of duty in the United States were killed with their own weapons, according to FBI statistics. In 100 of the killings, their weapons were taken from the scene of the incident, the statistics said.
       “People going for that weapon – that’s a pretty dangerous activity here,” said state Sen. Stephen Brewer (D-Barre), the bill’s lead sponsor. On Wednesday, the Senate approved the bill by a 36-0 vote, passing it on to the House.
       Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) estimated on Thursday that the measure’s odds there were “nearly 100 percent,” allowing for minor modifications. Barr called tougher laws against snatching an officer’s gun during a struggle “a commonsensical kind of thing.”
       The amendment also establishes a rubric for prosecutors, requiring the to prove that the defendant unfastened the holster; “partially removed” the firearm from the holster; released the gun’s safety; leaves fingerprints on the weapon; or attempted to pick up the weapon “[i]n the course of any struggle.”
       Additionally, prosecutors can elicit corroboration from forensic evidence showing the defendant touched the firearm; or from independent witnesses testifying the defendant touched the firearm while trying to remove it, or had his or her hand on it and tried to wrest it from the officer.
       Brewer said he has filed the bill a number of times during his long tenure on various incarnations of the Public Safety Committee. This year, he said, “it got some traction,” and was reported out favorably by the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.
Currently, a suspect seizing a gun from a police officer would likely be
committing larceny, said David Procopio, a spokesman for Suffolk County
District Attorney Daniel Conley, adding that he was “not aware of any
specific statute” regarding the crime. Prosecutors probably would seek
tougher charges in those cases, he said.
       “If it happens during the struggle, I think we would argue that the culprit is taking the gun to use it, and you’d be looking at an assault charge,” Procopio said in a telephone interview. “I think we would consider that to be an act committed with the intent to assault or kill the police officer.”
       Bill co-sponsor Rep. Brian Knuuttila (D-Gardner) was a police officer for
14 years, working in Gardner, Shirley, and Athol. In the mid-1980s,
Knuuttila recalled Thursday, he responded to a call at the Brookside Bar in
Shirley. Noticing “a dozen or so” motorcycles parked outside, Knuuttila
remembered, “We knew that things were probably going to be a bit difficult.”
       Inside, Knuuttila was knocked down, and unconscious. “I woke up, and they were pulling on the hog leg.” Knuuttila, who retired from police work in 1996, said the six rounds in the .357 revolver being tugged from his hip could’ve wreaked havoc in the bar.
       “Who’s to say what that person or persons could’ve done? You can do a lot of damage if you get it away from a police officer,” Knuuttila said.
Pointing to a high number of officers killed with their own weapons, he
said, “Generally, the officer is incapacitated. He’s on the ground, he’s
got himself involved in a fight or a wrestling match that he’s losing.”
In 1993, Boston Police Officer Thomas F. Rose was shot and killed in the
Area A-1 precinct house in Government Center, when a prisoner trying to
escape the station grabbed Rose’s gun from his holster and shot him twice.
       The next year, Boston policeman William J. Cullinane Jr. was wounded
critically in the Roxbury station when a prisoner snatched the gun from his
holster and started firing. Soon after, Boston Police adopted a policy mandating that officers booking suspects not carry guns with them, said Officer Michael McCarthy, a BPD spokesman.