Iowa state senators have revived an effort to strengthen penalties for individuals who assault sports officials. Senate File 521 provides an individual who commits an assault against a sports official with intent to commit a serious injury will be guilty of a class D felony.
All three senators — Republican Senators Mike Bousselot and Lynn Evans and Democrat Sen. Nate Boulton — voted to advance the measure out of subcommittee on Thursday.
Both Bousselot and Boulton agreed in subcommittee that Cooper DeJean did not signal a fair catch in the Iowa football team’s loss to Minnesota. But even though it wasn’t a fair catch, Senate File 521 is aimed at making sure the line isn’t crossed between advocating and supporting a fan’s team to doing something beyond to a sports official.
Evans, who is an official for high school sports in Iowa, said he believes fan behavior has gotten to the point where young people are not wanting to take up officiating.
“The threat of assault, although rare, has occurred and does occur every year in our state,” Evans added.
Eric Goranson, who represents the Iowa Association of Christian Schools, said efforts have been made by administrators explaining the importance of sportsmanship to parents and fans and those efforts are helping. The organization is undecided on the bill, noting that while it understands where the concern is coming from, it wonders if it’s good public policy when it is already against the law to assault somebody.
Lisa Davis-Cook with the Iowa Association for Justice said that group is also undecided. Typically it opposes enhanced penalties. She wondered if more arrests were made now for those who assault officials would force people to realize such actions are being taken seriously.
Boulton said he believes an assault against a sports official is slightly more dangerous than a typical assault because it has the threat of a “mob mentality” and the threat of assault can escalate quickly in the heat of the moment.
“We want people to know this is truly off limits and cannot be started,” he said.
Boulton, who also officiates, said he had a grandparent follow him to his car after he umpired a baseball game.
An official who was the focus of a fan for the last two hours is easily identifiable and an easy threat as they walk out of the gym.
“We have to have sports officials for competition opportunities in the future,” he said. “We’re already seeing Friday nights become Saturday mornings in high school football and the reason for that is very simple — we don’t have enough officials to go around.”
Evans said he worked a handful of single-man baseball games at the high school level in rural Iowa last summer because there were not enough officials. Had he turned those games down, kids would not have had the opportunity to play.
“I want kids on the field,” he said. “It’s obviously evidence that we need to get more officials in the sports and fan behavior is one of the things that is keeping them out.”
Evans said this bill is an opportunity for state lawmakers to show officials they have their back.
