This bill gives officers on the street unfettered discretion either to arrest or summons a person who is alleged to be committing a class 2 or class 1 misdemeanor. Currently, state law says that an officer must issue a summons unless he reasonably believes that the person involved is a danger to self or others, won't stop committing the alleged offense or won't show up in response to the summons. There is no predicate factual basis for making this radical change in the law, nor is there any means by which the discretionary action by officers can be tracked to determine if there is evidence of biased-based policing resulting from this delegation of unguided decision-making.

An identical proposal was defeated in the legislature last year, and it should be defeated again this year.

This bill is contrary to good policy - it will diminish Fourth Amendment and privacy rights in Virginia and give police officers the discretion to arrest and search an individual in hundreds of new scenarios.