(a) For the purposes of this section, the following words have the following meaning:
(1) BUILDING. Any structure that may be entered and utilized by persons for business, public use, lodging, or the storage of goods. The term includes any vehicle, aircraft, or watercraft used for the lodging of persons or carrying on business therein and includes any railroad boxcar or other rail equipment or trailer or tractor trailer, or combination thereof. Where a building consists of two or more units separately occupied or secure, each shall be deemed both a separate building and a part of the main building.
(2) STATE OF EMERGENCY. When the Governor duly proclaims the existence of conditions of disaster or of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property within the state caused by fire, flood, storm, epidemic, technological failure or accident, riot, drought, sudden and severe energy shortage, plant or animal infestation or disease, earthquake, explosion, terrorism, man-made disaster, or other conditions, other than conditions resulting from a labor controversy or conditions causing a state of war emergency, which, by reason of their magnitude, are or are likely to be beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment, and facilities of any single county, city, or county and city and require the combined forces of a mutual aid region or regions to combat or an energy shortage which requires extraordinary measures beyond the authority vested in the Alabama Public Service Commission.
(b) A person commits the crime of looting if the person intentionally enters without authorization any building or real property during a state of emergency and obtains, exerts control over, damages, or removes the property of another person without lawful authority.
(c) The crime of looting is a Class C felony.
(d) The fact that a person may be subject to prosecution under this section shall not bar his or her prosecution or punishment for any other offense.
Last modified: May 3, 2021