House public safety committee begins work on omnibus policy bill

Providing medications to incarcerated persons, privileged communications between domestic abuse advocates and victims, enhanced penalties for certain driving violations, and release of video regarding officer-involved death investigations are all provisions in the omnibus public safety policy bill.

Rep. Kelly Moller (DFL-Shoreview) sponsors the bill. She co-chairs the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee with Rep. Paul Novotny (R-Elk River). 

The committee received a walkthrough of a delete-all amendment to HF1354, amended it to include the policy provisions in HF1901, and sent it to the House floor on a voice vote.

“It’s a good bipartisan bill that represents a lot of things that will make Minnesota safer,” Novotny said.

What’s in the bill?

One provision in the bill would apply to unlicensed drivers whose driving privileges were revoked for DWI offenses, driving in excess of 100 mph, or failing to yield to a school bus, among other violations. These unlicensed drivers would be guilty of a gross misdemeanor if they either caused a collision resulting in “substantial bodily harm” or death or committed a third offense within 10 years.

Local correctional facilities would be required to provide an incarcerated person with the same medications that were prescribed to the person prior to their confinement, except in certain circumstances.

A provision would amend the category of video that must be posted to the BCA’s website within 30 days of an officer-involved shooting. Current law mandates that all video associated with the incident be posted within that time, and the bill would mandate posting of just the video footage that captures the deadly encounter.

The bill would prohibit information a domestic abuse victim divulges to a domestic abuse advocate from being heard in court without the victim’s consent. Current law allows a judge to decide whether such conversations can be heard.

That aspect of the statute is “potentially chilling,” Moller previously said, and can often prevent domestic abuse victims from seeking help from victim advocacy groups. “Because those communications are so important, we want to make sure that people are able to say what they need to say to get the services they need.”

The provision to keep these conversations private would not change a mandated reporter’s duty to report suspected maltreatment of vulnerable adults.

The bill would modify violence prevention training provided to students, and require schools to report active shooter incidents and active shooter threats to the Minnesota Fusion Center at the Department of Public Safety.

Other notable provisions would:

• specify peer-to-peer counseling expenses are reimbursable under the Hometown Heroes assistance program, which assists firefighters with physical and mental health care;
• add persons with dementia, a traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, or other cognitive impairments to the scope of the missing and endangered persons program;
• permit children’s advocacy centers to receive a portion of criminal fines imposed following a conviction for certain assault and criminal sexual conduct offenses;
• modify the statute requiring that crime victims receive notice of certain rights, including information about the address confidentiality program; and
• require additional notifications to victims if a prosecutor declines to charge an offense or dismisses a charge of violation of orders for protection, domestic abuse no contact orders, or harassment restraining orders.

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The following are selected bills that have been incorporated in part or in whole into the omnibus public safety policy bill:

• HF124 (Berg)
• HF129 (Repinski)
• HF264 (Hanson)
• HF286 (Perryman)
• HF341 (Heintzeman)
• HF1083 (Moller)
• HF1163 (Youakim)
• HF1295 (Johnson, P.)
• HF1354 (Moller)
• HF1401 (Witte)
• HF1901 (Moller)
• HF1998 (Rarick)