State senator wants to make motorcycle profiling illegal
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BOISE — A lawmaker wants to make sure motorcycle profiling is illegal — even though he says he doesn’t believe law enforcement profiles riders.
Sen. Lee Heider, D-Twin Falls, says he rides a motorcycle, and the only time he’s ever gotten a ticket is while he was on his bike.
He doesn’t believe he was profiled. In fact, he says he was speeding.
Still, Heider said he wants to make motorcycle profiling illegal with his bill.
“I don’t see the harm for either the people that ride motorcycles or law enforcement to pass this law,” Heider told EastIdahoNews.com.
Heider said the bill has been brought before the Legislature before, but it never made it very far.
Many, if not all, law enforcement offices in Idaho already have policies against profiling.
“I think it would fall under any other kind of profiling for us. We wouldn’t stop somebody unless there was a reason,” Madison County Sheriff’s Office Spokesman Cpl. Isaac Payne told EastIdahoNews.com.
Even though the law has been proposed in the past, this is the first time Heider has sponsored the bill, and he wants to go about it a different way.
“I decided this year I’d try a different approach. Instead of brow-beating policemen, let’s just say we don’t believe that they profile. So how does a law that says they don’t profile affect them?” Heider said. “It doesn’t.”
The bill was introduced to the Judiciary and Rules Committee on Feb. 14. Heider said a hearing on the bill will be Wednesday.