MIAMI — The leader of an association for Florida criminal defense attorneys urged a panel of state senators on Tuesday to reconsider a bill intended to protect law enforcement officers making arrests while “acting in good faith,” warning that it would also enable bad actors with badges.

At issue: the deletion of a provision in state law that says officers can’t legally use force — such as punching or shooting — if they know “the arrest or execution of a legal duty is unlawful.”

“We agree with the goal of this bill to reduce violent confrontations between citizens and law enforcement,” Aaron Wayt, president-elect of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told senators serving on the Rules Committee.

But he said there was no reason to also strike the law about officer restraint.

“It tells officers that they may not use force when what they’re doing is wrong and they know it,” Wayt said. “One governs the citizens. The other governs officers.”

Wayt added: “It’s a distinction that matters because of what just happened this past weekend in Minneapolis.”

On Saturday, federal immigration officers shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis. Pretti is the second U.S. citizen federal agents have shot and killed in the city, which has been flooded with immigration and border patrol officers since December.

Florida lawmakers have been since at least 2024 trying to remove the law that states officers can’t use force when they know it’s illegal. This year, similar bills are moving in the House and Senate that strike the law about unauthorized police force. They are both ready for a full vote by their respective chambers. Wayt told the Herald/Times it “sends the wrong message.”

“72 hours after an Officer committed intentional murder after disarming a citizen,” Wayt wrote in a text message, “we are sending a bill to the Senate floor that deletes this law.”

Sen. Tom Leek, an Ormond Beach Republican who is sponsoring the legislation, was asked to address Wayt’s concerns in his closing statement by a Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones.

Leek stressed that the bill included language that the officer would have to be acting in “good faith.” The change was part of an agreement Leek struck with the Democratic Black Caucus when he sponsored the legislation last year, Jones later confirmed to the Herald/Times. Last year’s bill also struck the provision now causing consternation.

“This is the whole discussion that we had last year,” Leek said. “What we kept in (the bill) was good faith. Recall that.”

Leek didn’t respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Jones helped add back in the “good faith” provision to last year’s bill, but was among three senators out of 19 who voted against the bill on Tuesday. He said afterward that he was ready to vote for it until Wayt spoke out about the provision relating to police force, in part because his community’s relationship with police is already strained.

But also because of recent events.

“Look at what’s happening in Minnesota,” Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat, said, wondering aloud if striking the law would give wayward officers a “free kill.”

“I can’t support something like that,” Jones said.

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