A year and a half later, the Arizona House passed “Preston’s Law,” a bill that would impose harsher penalties for group assaults. Backed by GOP state Rep. Matt Gress and supported by Lord’s family, the bill earned bipartisan support, passing by a 37-21 vote on March 3. It also earned bipartisan opposition.
But only one lawmaker expressed his disdain for the bill strongly enough to earn an internet slap from Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell.
“I will not cover for the prosecutors who killed Preston Lord at the expense of our children,” tweeted GOP Rep. Alexander Kolodin alongside a photo showing his “no” vote.
Mitchell, also a Republican, took offense at that insinuation. But instead of letting her fiancé anonymously snipe at Kolodin in response, Mitchell took aim at Kolodin herself.
It was stunning to listen to Representative @realAlexKolodin as he claimed- on the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives- that @marcoattorney prosecutors are responsible for Preston Lord’s murder.
— Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell (@Rachel1Mitchell) March 3, 2025
He is either ignorant of the actual facts or he is intentionally ignoring… https://t.co/tDPe8axpBe
On X, Mitchell called it “stunning” to listen to Kolodin’s “utter nonsense” that prosecutors in her office “are responsible for Preston Lord’s murder.” She continued: “He is either ignorant of the actual facts or he is intentionally ignoring the facts to support his soft-on-crime agenda.”
Mitchell’s office did not return a request for comment.
Preston Lord died in October 2023, two days after he was attacked in Queen Creek. His death sparked outrage about teen violence in the East Valley.
Courtesy Justice4PrestonLord
Bipartisan opposition
Kolodin is no stranger to casting attention-grabbing votes and pushing eye-catching bills. This session, he has run a bill to legalize pipe bombs and to bring back the firing squad as a state-sanctioned execution method. But in voting against Preston’s Law, he had some unusual company, at least for such a far-right member of the state legislature.Four other Republicans voted against the bill, as did 16 Democrats. Many of them expressed similar issues with the bill, though no one else tried to pick a fight with Mitchell over it.
Some took issue with the bill’s definition of group assault as when a person “is aided by two or more accomplices who aid in committing the assault and the assault is directed at a single person.” Democratic Rep. Lupe Contreras worried about the impacts that definition could have on his children.
“I would hate for my son to be put in that predicament because somebody did something to his sister and he's standing up to her and maybe his friend jumps in,” Contreras said on the House floor. “All of a sudden, my kid and his friend get into some problem and it wasn’t mob violence — it was somebody standing up for his sister.”
The bill would make group assault a class 4 felony, punishable by 1-4 years in prison for a first offense. On the House floor, Gress said the bill would support prosecutors by giving them the tools “to stop things from getting out of hand.” But Kolodin and others noted that Arizona law already provides for stiff penalties for aggravated assault.
In voting against the bill, Republican Rep. Rachel Keshel argued that “we already have criminal code to prosecute those who did such egregious things and murdered this kid.” She also said the Legislature “shouldn’t be making policy by exploiting tragedies” and said it wasn’t the Legislature that failed Lord but the Gilbert police.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell called state Rep. Alexander Kolodin's suggestion that prosecutors were to blame for Preston Lord's death "stunning" and "utter nonsense."
Katya Schwenk
Casting blame
Kolodin’s opposition was the most strident, however. Ahead of the vote, he argued that the bill was a way for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and the city of Gilbert to avoid responsibility. Kolodin finished his floor comments with an animated “HELL NO” before slamming down the microphone attached to his desk.In an interview with Phoenix New Times after the vote, Kolodin also slammed the bill’s definition of aggravated assault as “ridiculous” and “bullshit.” The bill would “basically let us send kids to jail for getting in fights in high school,” he said. “You throw a few punches in the courtyard, now you’re going down on a serious felony.” The Scottsdale Republican cast more blame on Mitchell’s office and elected officials in Gilbert.
“The bill is an attempt to cover up for the MCAO and the city because they knew that they should have put these guys behind bars long before they killed Preston Lord,” Kolodin said. “Existing law absolutely gave them the tools that they needed. But they didn’t. And a kid died. So they’re running this bill as cover to go, ‘Oh, look, if only we had the tools.’”
A spokesperson for the Gilbert City Council didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Kolodin does not seem to blame Gilbert police, despite the tonnage of flak the department has earned for its lackadaisical investigation into the assaults of Lord and other Goons victims. “I always hesitate to place blame on the police” because they are “under the control of civilian elected officials,” Kolodin said. “The buck stops with the people who show up on the ballot.”
Preston’s Law now heads to the Arizona Senate.
