Kentucky lawmakers Wednesday advanced proposed hate crime legislation that takes aim at criminals who attack police, firefighters and emergency medical responders on the basis of what those groups do for a living.

House Bill 14 would allow a person to be found to have committed a hate crime if that person intentionally targets a victim based on his or her employment or perceived employment in one of those fields. It can then be used as a sentencing factor if a court finds that a hate crime was the motivating factor of one of many felony offenses included within the bill.

The bill passed the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday and will now move to the House floor.

If the bill in its current form becomes law, a judge could use that hate crime determination as the sole factor for denial of probation, shock probation and conditional discharge. It may also be used by the parole board in a decision to delay or deny parole.

Shawn Helbig, president of the Bowling Green Fraternal Order of Police, testified before the House Judiciary committee Wednesday on behalf of the FOP about the need for the legislation. He has been a law enforcement officer with the Bowling Green Police Department for nearly 19 years.

While Helbig acknowledged to lawmakers he understood the inherent risks associated with being a police officer, he did not sign on to become a target for violence simply because he is an officer.

“I knew when I signed up for this job this was a dangerous job,” Helbig told legislators. “I had extensive conversations with my wife about how dangerous this job was. I knew it going in, I agreed to it and those are the risks I take when I take this job.

“I now have a 15-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter that I have those same conversations with on a regular basis so they understand the dangers of what Dad does. I signed up to put myself in danger. I didn’t sign up to be executed or to be killed or injured simply for wearing a uniform, and unfortunately, in the last few years we’re seeing that more and more.”

Rep. Kevin Bratcher, the Louisville Republican who introduced the bill, would like for Kentucky to become the second state to enact this type of legislation, he said.

“I think it would be a great idea for Kentucky to do this,” Bratcher said to his fellow lawmakers.

“I just think that we need to show that if you are going to attack one of our first responders, you are going to get the full brunt of Kentucky law, and we take it very serious. We ask men and women to run towards a problem, an accident while human nature asks us, is embedded in us to run away, and we need to let them know that we stand by them and we’re not going to tolerate it,” Bratcher said.

Rep. Darryl Owens, a Louisville Democrat, expressed concern the bill diminishes other groups included in existing hate crime legislation.

This bill meets the category for a hate crime because these individuals are being targeted merely for their occupation, Lexington Republican Rep. Robert Benvenuti III said.

“We’re not talking about a situation in which a police officer is engaged in an action,” he said.

“This bill from my reading of it is very narrowly tailored to say that when you are a first responder and you are killed or injured not because you are engaged in an action but merely because of the uniform, the badge you have on your chest that there ought to be a separate remedy for that, an additional remedy for that.

“We’re talking about executions of individuals based on the shield they have on their chest and while some might believe that that’s not worthy of some additional remedy, I wholly disagree,” Benvenuti said.

Five people signed up to speak in opposition of the bill including members of the Black Lives Matter movement. Many members of that movement attended the hearing and were wearing Black Lives Matter shirts.

Hate crime laws in part were established as a response to our own history. There have been centuries of violence against people of color, and hate crime laws were established to protect people from violence based upon “immutable” characteristics, said Kate Miller of the Kentucky ACLU, who was the first person to speak out against the bill Wednesday.

The ACLU is concerned that this bill, if passed, could potentially result in hate crime charges against someone engaging in protests.

Instead the organization recommends supporting first responders with increases in wages and benefits.

Reena Piracha, a Muslim woman who spoke out against the bill, said that occupations are chosen unlike skin color, gender and sexual orientation. Hate crime legislation is designed to protect marginalized groups, she said.

— Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter @BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.