If the “Back the Blue” sign was stolen from someone else, the act of a 19-year-old unnamed woman destroying it could be a crime, and most likely is. It could have been abandoned. She could have made the sign herself, though it appeared to be a sign made by the local sheriff, so that she could perform the act of destroying it. Or someone put the sign up and she found its message so offensive that she seized it, stomped on it and crumpled it up for the illegal purpose of destroying someone else’s property.

It’s not a big crime, but it’s still a crime, a B misdemeanor in Utah. But it’s the enhancement with which she was charged that makes this otherwise petty wrong worthy of note.

According to the affidavit, the allegations are being treated as a “hate crime enhanced allegation” due to “the demeanor displayed by [the woman] in attempts to intimidate law enforcement while destroying a ‘Pro Law Enforcement’ sign.”

The Utah Code states a person who commits any primary offense — such as misdemeanor property destruction — with the intent to “intimidate or terrorize another person or with reason to believe that his action would intimidate or terrorize that person” is subject to a class B misdemeanor primary offense becoming a class A misdemeanor.

There is the intent to take someone else’s property, to destroy someone else’s property, and there there is the “intent to intimidate.”

The code also defines “intimidate or terrorize” as “an act which causes the person to fear for his physical safety or damages the property of that person or another.” According to the code, the act “must be accompanied with the intent to cause or has the effect of causing a person to reasonably fear to freely exercise or enjoy any right secured by the Constitution or laws of the state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

What did this young woman do that the cop alleged was intended to, or had the effect of, causing him to “fear to freely exercise or enjoy” his constitutional rights?

[T]he officer saw a woman “stomping on a ‘Back the Blue’ sign next to where the traffic stop was conducted, crumble it up in a destructive manner and throw it into a trash can all while smirking in an intimidating manner towards me.”

How does one smirk in an intimidating manner? That might be hard to explain, perhaps even to demonstrate if the officer were asked to make the face that intimidated him for the jury. But it’s easy enough to say by merely putting the words together. It could just as easily been frowning  or staring in an intimidating manner. It’s not as if there’s any requirement that it be caught on video to prove it happened.

In an odd way, there’s a aspect to the allegation that suggests some degree of honesty. The cop didn’t gild the lily by claiming she said something intimidating, like “cops are gonna die,” or take a “fighting stance” with her “fists clenched” while smirking at him. He could have, and it’s not exactly novel that a cop would beef up his accusations with an allegations that falls shy of truth. But he didn’t here. It was just a smirk, albeit an intimidating one.

There has long been a fairly obvious problem with the creation of hate crime enhancements, the elevation of an offense’s severity based upon the alleged mindset of the perpetrator. What makes an act a hate crime varies by jurisdiction and statutory language, but the crux of the crime remains largely the same: the intent of the person to impair another person’s rights.

But a cop? Well, the statute doesn’t limit its reach to protected classes, such as those based on race, gender or sexual orientation. Indeed, had the statute limited the scope of who could be the victim of a hate crime, it might not have included a cop. Then again, it might very well have done so anyway. States are pretty protective of their police officers, and even if they weren’t included in the initial hate crime law, they might well be added in by amendment later when no one is looking.

There are many people who argue that hate crime enhancements are needed because they are offenses of particular despicability, and morality demands that they be treated differently from the mere underlying criminal conduct. It’s not enough that the act is a crime, but that the act is a crime plus hate. Of course, if the underlying conduct is already a crime, others would argue that it is already subject to condemnation and punishment, and throwing in an enhancement for the performing of a crime plus discriminatory animus is to criminalize thought.

The law does not prohibit us from hating whomever we want, but merely acting upon it.

The notion that the 19-year-old woman’s stomping on the “Back the Blue” sign, crumbling it up right in the officer’s face, would “intimidate” him seems ludicrous. And it’s very hard to imagine this prosecution moving very far, even after the judge stops laughing. But if the basis for the allegation survives, even if its application to this officer fails the smirk test, it opens the door to curious possibilities.

If a non-cop alleges that someone destroyed a sign with a controversial message while allegedly smirking to intimidate, will that suffice to make it a hate crime? Anybody can claim a smirk. Or frown. Or other facial expression to which they impose an intent such as intimidation. Words are bad enough, since anybody can claim they were uttered, but just one look?