House Bill 52, titled the Protect Those Who Serve and Protect Act of 2025, expands and reorganizes North Carolina criminal assault laws to provide broader protection for public safety personnel and certain animals used in public safety work. The bill creates a new offense for assaulting a public safety officer, law enforcement agency animal, or search and rescue animal by throwing, spraying, or otherwise projecting water or another substance at them, and makes that conduct a Class I felony when committed against a covered officer or animal in the performance of duty or because of status. It also updates the state’s laser-pointer statute to cover the broader category of public safety officers and animals, and revises several existing assault statutes to replace narrower references to specific occupations with the new term “public safety officer.”
The bill also increases or clarifies penalties in a number of assault provisions. It amends laws covering assaults with deadly weapons, assaults with firearms, assaults causing serious injury, and arson-related offenses that injure responders, generally extending those protections to public safety officers as newly defined. In addition, it repeals one existing statute, G.S. 14-34.6, and folds its subject matter into other revised provisions. The bill updates a reporting statute so court data on certain offenses against hospital and emergency health care personnel is still collected under the revised assault framework. The effective date is December 1, 2025, and the changes apply only to offenses committed on or after that date.
HB52 would substantially revise Chapter 14 assault offenses and related reporting provisions in the North Carolina General Statutes by broadening the protected class from several specific responder categories to a unified definition of “public safety officer.” It would also add a new felony offense for assault by water or other substances, expand laser-device prohibitions, and adjust penalty classifications for assaults involving firearms, deadly weapons, serious injury, and arson-related harm. Affected parties include law enforcement officers, probation and parole officers, detention facility staff, telecommunicators, firefighters, rescue squad workers, EMS personnel, hospital and medical practice personnel, National Guard members, Armed Forces members, juvenile court counselors, emergency management workers, and law enforcement/search-and-rescue animals.
The bill appears to have been received favorably in committee, as reflected by the committee substitute favorable reports on February 25 and March 4, 2025. No recorded votes or committee transcript excerpts are provided, so there is no detailed debate history in the available materials. Overall, the bill’s framing and committee action suggest broad support for strengthening protections for first responders and related public safety personnel.
The main policy issue embedded in the bill is how far to extend criminal protections and whether to consolidate many existing responder-specific statutes into a broader “public safety officer” category. The bill also raises the penalty for certain firearm assaults from a Class D felony to a Class C felony, which could be viewed as a significant sentencing increase. Another possible point of concern is the new felony offense for throwing or spraying water or other substances at protected persons or animals, which may raise questions about scope, intent, and overlap with existing assault laws. No specific opposition is documented in the provided materials, but the breadth of the new definitions and penalty enhancements are the most likely areas of contention.