COLUMBUS, Ohio — Getting too close to a police officer, firefighter or paramedic in Ohio just became a lot riskier, thanks to a new law that borrows an idea already tangled up in federal court fights in four other states.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed Substitute House Bill 20 on July 7, creating a new crime for approaching or remaining within 15 feet of an “emergency service responder” after being warned to back away — if the person also interferes with the responder’s work or threatens them with physical harm. A first offense is a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail. If the conduct puts the responder or a bystander at risk of physical harm, it becomes a fourth- or fifth-degree felony.
The bill, sponsored by state Reps. Thomas Hall, R-Madison Township, and Phil Plummer, R-Butler Township, also raises the penalty for the state’s existing obstructing-official-business law and adds probation officers to the list of protected responders. It stiffens the menacing statute, too, making it a specific crime to brandish a weapon at a responder or their family.
“Protecting those who protect us is good policy,” Hall said after the bill cleared the Senate. Plummer, a former Montgomery County sheriff, has framed the buffer zone as a matter of officer safety at chaotic scenes. “Whether we’re at a crime scene or critical incident, we want to give our first responders, police, fire and EMS, room to do their jobs,” he told the House earlier this year. The bill didn’t start out this way. An earlier version would have set the buffer at 14 feet and created a stand-alone crime of “harassing” a responder simply by ignoring a warning to stay back — no interference or threat required. That draft drew opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, whose legislative director, Gary Daniels, warned lawmakers it “can be abused, used to avoid or minimize accountability, and reduce transparency, or to target certain individuals.” Sponsors added the interference-or-threat requirement in response, and the ACLU backed off active opposition, though it remains what Daniels called an “interested party.”
Auditors in the crosshairs
Much of the early debate centered on so-called First Amendment auditors — people who deliberately film police encounters, often to post online, testing officers’ willingness to tolerate close-up recording. Plummer named them directly during committee testimony, saying “YouTubers drive a lot of this, (as do) nosy citizens,” and adding that the buffer would apply at protests as well as emergency scenes. Both sponsors have said in writing that the bill isn’t meant to stop bystanders from recording — only from closing the distance after being told to stop.
That distinction is the same one that has failed to hold up in other states. Arizona’s 2022 law banning recording police within 8 feet was struck down as unconstitutional. Indiana’s 25-foot buffer law was blocked by a federal judge and then, in August 2025, by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found it too vague — Judge Doris Pryor wrote that the Constitution won’t tolerate arresting someone because an officer “had a bad breakfast.” Louisiana’s 25-foot version has been enjoined by a federal judge since January 2025 in a suit brought by a coalition of news organizations, with an appeal still pending before the 5th Circuit as of this summer.
Ohio’s law differs from those in one notable way: it requires proof the person also impeded the responder or threatened them, rather than criminalizing proximity alone. Sponsors and supporters — including the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio — argue that added element should help it survive the vagueness challenges that sank the others. Critics, including national press-freedom advocates who have fought similar laws, counter that the warning itself is still left entirely to an officer’s discretion, with no standard for when one can be issued.
A press access question, too
The law doesn’t single out journalists, but reporters and photographers routinely work within 15 feet of officers, paramedics and fire crews at breaking news scenes — the same proximity that has put working press in the middle of buffer-zone fights in Louisiana, Indiana and Florida, where news organizations have argued the laws chill coverage of law enforcement and make it harder to document misconduct. Six media companies, including Gannett and TEGNA, are among the plaintiffs suing over Louisiana’s law.
Ohio’s bill doesn’t include a specific media exemption. Whether a warned-off reporter continuing to shoot video of an incident could be charged under the new law will likely depend on how individual departments and prosecutors interpret “interfere” — a question press advocates say won’t be settled until the law is tested in practice, or in court.
The new provisions aren’t in effect yet. Absent an emergency clause, Ohio law typically takes effect 90 days after the governor files it with the Secretary of State’s office, which had not yet posted an effective date as of this story’s publication.
