By Kerri Carswell for The Carolina Journal

On Tuesday, March 25, a House Judiciary Committee in the North Carolina General Assembly approved House Bill 52 entitled Protect Those Who Serve & Protect Act of 2025. The bill enhances penalties on assaults on public safety officers, law enforcement or search and rescue animals, and employees or volunteers at a school.

Representatives Reece Pyrtle, R-Rockingham, and Kelly Hastings, R-Gaston, showed the committee a video from last April of police officers in an intense tussle with pro-Palestine protesters at UNC Chapel Hill.

“When I saw this video, I said, ‘we need to file a bill about this,’” said Pyrtle.

House bill 52 defines “public safety officer” to include any of the ten listed officers, ranging from law enforcement to school staff to hospital employees. It also protects search and rescue and law enforcement animals that are subject to assault.

The bill amends previous North Carolina law by adding new sections which contain the use of substances and laser devices. It also includes affray, arson, and other unlawful actions that result in serious bodily injury.

Chiefly, the bill increases punishment for “felonious assault with deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflicting serious injury,” raising the punishment from a Class E to Class D felony. The new sections including the use of substance and laser devices would find offenders guilty of a Class I felony – the least serious type of felony in North Carolina.

The bill aims to clearly define and expand upon the penalties for assaulting first responders and other personnel. The existing statute found individuals guilty of a class E felony, which is punishable by a standard sentence of 2 to 4 years’ imprisonment. The listed officers only included law enforcement, probation, or parole officers, members of the North Carolina National Guard, or a person employed at a state or local detention facility. The change to “public safety officer” encompasses a wider range of individuals and increases their protections.

The use of the language, “because of a person’s status as a public safety officer,” in the bill addresses all assaults on these individuals, regardless of whether they are actively on duty.

Some of the same bill sponsors introduced a similar, but stricter bill, HB61, with the exception of Hastings and Tricia Cotham, R-Mecklenburg, who sponsored HB52 but did not sponsor this HB61. Reps. Carson Smith, R-Pender, and Dudley Greene, R-Avery, took their places as sponsors.

House Bill 61 aims to increase penalties for assaults on first responders by upgrading the offense from a Class D felony to a Class B1 felony. This change would impose much harsher punishment, placing it on par with serious crimes like murder and rape. However, the bill has a narrower focus compared to House Bill 52. It does not cover assaults with the intent to kill or cause serious injury, nor does it apply to as many types of personnel as HB52 does.

The two bills were combined and presented as one on Tuesday’s Judiciary 2 committee hearing. Pyrtle, who sponsored both bills, spoke of his drive to address felonious assault against public safety officers.

“I have attended many funerals for an officer’s death in the line of duty, and every time I leave one of those services, I want to do something about it, so that maybe it won’t be so soon before I have to attend another one,” he said.

Law Enforcement Reacts

According to the NLEOMF (National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund) 2024 End-of-year Law Enforcement Officers Fatalities Report, the number of officers killed in the line of duty increased by 25% in 2024. 147 federal, state, county, municipal, military, tribal, and US territories officers died while discharging or attempting to discharge their duties in 2024. Firearms were the leading cause of death in law enforcement fatalities in 2024, with a 13% increase of officers killed by gunfire compared to 2023. In North Carolina, the lives of 5 officers were taken in the year 2024.

Eddie Caldwell, head of the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association, described these assaults as “nasty.”

“You can imagine how you would feel – if you were the victim – and someone was throwing stuff or spitting on you,” Caldwell said.

“We appreciate our legislature and bill sponsors for their support of law enforcement and their efforts and willingness to address this offensive conduct,” he added. “Hopefully, this kind of legislation will deter people from engaging in this behavior.”

Protecting Teachers

Representatives Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, and Laura Budd, D-Mecklenburg, spoke of their hesitations for the inclusion of school staff under the compass of “public safety officer.”

“I just feel like teachers and counselors are in a different category than all of those other folks that we have articulated,” said Butler. “They are not public safety officers, they are not charged with the risk of doing that work.”

Butler pointed to the disabled community, citing that some students would be at risk of being charged with a felony for something that is “probably a fairly common occurrence.”

“The risk of having a child suffer a felony because they’ve done something bad by throwing water on their teacher – that used to just be a trip to the principal’s office.” Butler continued.

Budd questioned the statute’s credibility in support of Butler’s statements. 

“By defining teachers as public safety officers, is that going to then expose them to additional obligations and responsibilities under other statutes that they are not trained for, paid for, or have the resources to address?” she asked. “Are we inadvertently opening a Pandora’s box?”

House Committee Chair Sarah Stevens, R-Surry, called attention to instances of violence in local school districts in a quick response to Butler’s comments.

“We do have gang members in high schools, and back home, we actually have some in middle schools,” said Stevens. “I think allowing them an extra tool may not be so bad.”

Despite intense debate and representatives voting to defer and amend, The House Judiciary 2 Committee approved The Protect Those Who Serve & Protect Act of 2025. The bill was re-referred to the Committee on Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House.

If passed, the bill is set to take effect on December 1, 2025, and will apply to offenses on or after that date.

Kerri Carswell is an intern at Carolina Journal and a student at NC State University.

The preceding article originally appeared on February 27, 2025 at The Carolina Journal’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Any views or opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Carolina Leadership Coalition.