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The bill was special ordered onto the Senate's session agenda Monday, bypassing the committee process. It has been before the Senate in several forms over the past few years, and its sponsor, Sen. Sammuel Sanes, tried to have it placed on the last session agenda a month ago, but the Senate instead sent it to committee.
Earlier this month, opponents of the bill prevented a committee vote by walking out on the hearing and preventing a quorum.
Senators approved the measure Monday, after heavily amending it to address concerns about permanently ceding control to the federal government and granting unfettered immunity to federal agents without recourse. The Senate first adopted an amendment in the nature of a substitute – a replacement bill with new text – from Sanes, qualifying the nature and duration of the status to be given to federal agents.
Sanes' amendment made peace officer status for any federal agent expire automatically after one year, unless renewed by the police commissioner. It also mandates an orientation or class for federal peace officers on V.I. law and culture. And there must be semi-annual meetings to discuss the status of the program and whether it should be continued.
Supporters and opponents alike agreed that federal agencies and officers have at times run roughshod over local institutions and officials. Supporters argued that was not a reason to reject the prospect of more federal help at a time of out-of-control violent crime, while opponents warned granting the authority would be difficult to undo.
Sanes, Sens. Celestino White and Carlton "Ital" Dowe, who have supported the measure from its inception, argued it would ease relations with federal law enforcement and bring more resources to bear on the problems of crime in the community.
Opponents raised three principal objections: the aforementioned perceived disrespect from federal circles; that the federal government had failed in its obligation to enforce the borders and keep guns out, so in retaliation the territory should not grant peace-officer status; and that someone from the federal government should have testified in support of the bill if it is something they support.
"If you take a bit of a sandwich and you don't like it, do you take another bite while you are still chewing on that first bite?" Richards asked, presenting the sandwich as a metaphor for the federal government.
"Perhaps our greatest problem here in the Virgin Islands remains the weapons and drugs that pour through our borders – this is what the federal government is supposed to focus on and these are all violations of federal laws, yet we don't even have a postal inspector," Malone said in a statement explaining his opposition to the measure. “The federal emphasis needs to be on border control and it's currently sorely lacking,” he said.
Sen. Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O'Reilly said she opposed the bill previously, but felt the amendments addressed concerns enough and that the severity of violent crime in the territory's streets was such that drastic measures were needed. "We can always rescind it later," she said.
The Senate added two other amendments proposed by James. One added the word "reasonable" a second time, placing it before the word "force" so the bill now reads: "a federal law enforcement officer acting pursuant to this section may use any reasonable force which the officer reasonably believes to be necessary to defend himself."
James' other amendment removed a section that made federal agents the legal equivalent of V.I. government employees for insurance purposes.
Voting to send the bill, as amended, on to Gov. John deJongh Jr. for signing were: Sanes, Dowe, James, White, Rivera-O'Reilly, Sens. Craig Barshinger, Louis Patrick Hill, Ronald Russell and Patrick Simeon Sprauve. Voting nay were: Richards, Malone, Millin-Young, Sens. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen and Terrence "Positive" Nelson. Sen. Alvin Williams was absent.
Sanes was conciliatory after the vote, saying only that he was "glad a majority of his colleagues decided to support this," and had been and "remain willing to amend this to address any legitimate concern."
Sanes said he would check with legal counsel to see if removing the passage giving federal agents equivalent status to V.I. government employees created any difficulties, but if so, he said those concerns could be addressed later.
"The core concept of the bill remains: peace officer status and the protections that provides," he said.
" the aforementioned perceived disrespect from federal circles;" "respect" is EARNED and should not be expected. The fact that they even have to come here at all speaks for itself. Respect? Earn it.
The Feds need to take total control of the islands. It's clear that the people of the VI are too stupid to elect competent people to run the islands.
Amen to both of the above!
The fact that Sen. Sanes saw the sensibilty in this course of action is commendable. My only concern is that it may be too little too late. Cruzans are not big fans of adversity, even if it serves a greater purpose i.e. a long term goal. The island has been perpetually unstable throughout my entire 32 years of existence. We as an island are so quick to come up with excuses as to why we are victims... i.e Hurricane Hugo knocked us back to the Stone Age, the politicians we elect display rampant nepotsim, our schools are sub-par, our law enforcement is underpaid and for the most part indifferent, our infrastructure is crumbling, we don't allocate financial resources correctly or beneficially, we have subsidized housing projects on prime caribbean beach front, we no longer have Hovensa, WAPA bills are through the roof, criminals are allowed to run amock, our politicians quibble over ridiculous issues while collecting ridiculous paychecks. These are just a few issues, please feel free to tell me if I am flat out wrong here. In my opinion (yes in my opinion, this is not fact), I think we should welcome any and all Federal assistance we can get and not just in the form of financial handouts as these tend to be grossly misappropriated. I think that a couple of decades of direct Federal intervention financially, politically and in law enforcement could be the catalyst needed to turn things around. This would take time though and not just a couple months, not just a couple years but like I said...some decades. We have a beautiful resource in St. Croix, one that could yield dividends for everyone if we could just try and do some things differently. Ok, I got it Hovensa is closed down, lets quit complaining about it and find something to replace it with. Our politicians don't accomplish anything, simple....stop re-electing them year after year. Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.....well, doesn't all this seem insane to you?
Our Police Force is underpaid, underqualified and as I said before...indifferent. Don't have uniformed personnel around as a placebo folks, have law enforcement personnel that are capable of performing law enforcement. Forgive my generalization here, I know that not all of the Police Force is underqualified and underwhelmed, but are they really preventing crime as a whole? Our public school system....to me (in my opinion), this is where it all begins. How is a school supposed to produce quality members of society when they are just simply a place to go during the week from morning till afternoon? From what I understand, the state of most of these schools is that of disarray, directly due to a lack of funding, this in turn produces relatively un-educated and un-motivated people that stay on the island, which does not have an abundance of jobs and in turn makes crime seem like a very lucrative idea, combined with poor public housing and you have an absolute recipe for disaster (in a sense, we have been "Hugoing" ourselves for years with this). Do this over and over again over several decades and there you have a majority of your crime problem. Politicians, stop quabbling over things like our Constitution, your schools are falling apart and people are being murdered at point blank range, in public (Ecliff). Guns and Drugs are seemingly everywhere, let's fix our schools, lets fix our public housing and for godsakes, let's get some extra help with our law enforcement. There are just too many things wrong for it to be solved quickly, but doing the same thing over and over again is the same is not doing anything at all at this point. I look forward to the idea of Federal intervention, I hope that it leads to a greater accountability among us. Perhaps in time, we can turn things around on St. Croix, but this will only happen if we start doing things differently. God Bless, Jah Bless, Forget Hess!