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Machete bills compete in House, Senate


By KAFIA HOSH
khosh@potomacnews.com
Thursday, February 23, 2006


RELATED General Assembly
A Senate panel and a House of Delegates subcommittee gave preliminary approval Wednesday to two bills that will thwart gang activity in Northern Virginia, but lawmakers could not agree on each body’s proposal.

The Senate bill makes it illegal to point, hold or brandish a machete in a threatening manner and in a public place.

SB183, sponsored by Prince William Sen. Linda T. “Toddy” Puller, D-36th District, also describes a machete as a weapon with a single-edged blade that is 12 inches or longer.

The House version says it is unlawful to brandish a machete with the intent to intimidate, and considers the violation as predicate criminal act, which helps define the infraction as criminal street gang activity.

Both bills consider the violation a Class 1 misdemeanor, and if the infraction occurs on any school property or within 1,000 feet of a school, it is a Class 6 felony.

Although the Senate and House committees agreed there is a need for the machete bills to deter gang violence, they could not come to an agreement when addressing each chamber’s version.

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee conformed HB588 to mirror Puller’s proposal.

In turn, a House Courts of Justice subcommittee also changed SB183 to match it with the House edition of the machete bill.

“They both agree there needs to be a bill,” said Susan E. Mittereder, the Fairfax County legislative director. “What the bill’s to be, they don’t agree on.”

When deliberating the House bill, the Senate was weary of the proposal’s stipulation to prove intent to intimidate with a machete.

“The Senate did not like our version,” said Salem Del. H. Morgan Griffith, R-8th District, before he called to conform Puller’s bill with the House version during the House subcommittee meeting.

“We worked on this for a long time.”

Earlier in the legislative session, the Senate and House machete bills fared differently in their respective lawmaking bodies.

The Senate bill passed with relative ease in its own chamber, however the House bill faced some resistance.

HB588, carried by Fairfax Del. Vivian E. Watts, D-39th District, was deliberated in three separate House subcommittees where Fairfax County police officers testified on numerous occasions, even displaying confiscated machetes etched with gang markings and showing legislators gruesome images of machete attack victims.

“We got grilled all three times,” Mittereder said.

In order to come to a conclusion, the Senate and the House will form a Committee Conference composed of lawmakers from each chamber.

“I just hope we have the right members on the conference,” Puller said.

Law enforcement officials are anxious for legislators to reach an agreement, noting the dire need for a bill they believe will serve as a deterrent to gang violence in Northern Virginia.

“In the last 10 years we’ve seen an increasing number of horrific attacks with machetes,” said Maj. Frank A. Wernlein, patrol bureau commander for the Fairfax County Police Department. “When they are used, they are used with devastating results.”

Within the last five years, there were 118 machete related cases in Fairfax County, many involving alleged gang members bludgeoning their victims.

“It is becoming an instrument of gang violence,” said Wernlein, who is a former member of the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Taskforce that includes Prince William County.

Prince William County also has its share of gang violence, said Dana C. Fenton, the county’s director for legislative affairs.

“We do have quite a few arrests all the time,” he said.

Fenton said the machete bills endorsed by Fairfax County will also benefit nearby Prince William County.

“We support those additional” measures, he said. “It will certainly help out.”
In 2004, the General Assembly passed legislation adding machetes to the list of concealed weapons illegal to carry.

The machete bills’ supporters want to see at least one proposal pass when the Committee Conference meets.

“It’s just a matter of working out the differences,” Mittereder said.