PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers are not going to give business owners the right to kill vandals who damage or deface their property.
But the reason for that decision is less than clear.
Only 13 of 16 Senate Republicans voted in favor of Senate Bill 1650 on Monday. Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita’s proposal sought to expand the ability of not only business owners but also their employees to use deadly force beyond saving lives or stopping criminal violations. damages if the perpetrator was also armed with a deadly weapon or a “dangerous instrument.”
And that last category, it was noted, could include anything that, depending on how it’s used, is “readily capable of causing death or serious injury,” something lawmakers debated in committee could include a block of wood or even a ballpoint.
Monday’s vote came as a surprise, reflecting what appears to have been a change of heart by Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City.
In committee, Borrelli said he sees the problem through the eyes of business owners who, unless they act, could see their entire livelihoods destroyed. He even recalled the 1992 Los Angeles riots that occurred after police were acquitted of beating Rodney King.
By Monday, however, Borrelli was telling a different story.
“I can understand you using force to save your life, your friends, your family or someone else’s,” he said. “Any kind of reasonable force that I will defend, I will support.”
But this, Borrelli said, is different.
He noted that the crime of committing criminal damage is a Class 3 felony. It carries a presumed prison term of 3.5 years.
“You can replace the property,” Borrelli said.
“You can’t replace life,” he continued. “This bill is a bit extreme.”
Borrelli said he hoped Ugenti-Rita had “watered down” the measure. She does not.
But Ugenti-Rita told Capitol Media Services after the loss that she sees something very different in her vote.
“I think he was retaliating because I voted against his bill,” he said.
That refers to Senate Bill 1457, which addressed security issues for voting machines. He was two votes short Monday when Ugenti-Rita and Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, joined Democrats in voting against.
Borrelli, for his part, said that this has nothing to do with it.
“It’s not spite,” he told Capitol Media Services. But he declined to answer other questions, including why his views changed in the six weeks between the time he endorsed him in the Senate Judiciary Committee and when he came to a final vote on Monday.
Ugenti-Rita also lashed out at Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican from Prescott. She said Fann knew she was two votes short of the majority of 16 she needed, but she chose to schedule it anyway.
However, Fann said there was nothing sinister about that, noting that she had earlier delayed a final vote. And the Senate president said that she was trying to get final votes on all the Senate measures by Monday so they could go to the House.
“We needed to keep moving,” Fann said.
