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Woman Arrested, Dragged Away After Speaking About Flock at City Council Meeting

218 points · 261 comments · latexr

  1. Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
    They really buried the details in this article. The opener leads you to believe she did nothing wrong because she briefly spoke during a public comment period

    > Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri. After briefly speaking at a podium during a public comment period, she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.

    The details are toward the end. The council was trying to discuss a public housing issue and she was trying to use that time slot to bring up Flock.

    > Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue.

    They cut off the mic and told her it was the wrong topic, she wouldn’t leave the podium, flipped off the council (it’s the photo in the article) and the police hauled her off the podium.

    There’s a real valid story in here about the city council sending the Flock thing to committee, but the article has been through the clickbait ringer so many times that they’re trying to make it sound like someone got arrested for saying “Flock cameras” during an open comments section, which isn’t true.

    Given the topic I’m probably going to get downvoted for bringing up facts from the article itself, but I’m really tired of this type of journalism where you can tell they workshopped this and carefully chose which important details to bury at the bottom of the story so it gives a different impression if you only read the headline or skim the first couple paragraphs.

    1. empath75 · · focus · HN ↗
      Giving someone the finger is not a crime.
      1. Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
        Interrupting a city council meeting, speaking out of turn, refusing to leave, and then devolving into obvious defiance is, however.
        1. freejazz · · focus · HN ↗
          Well, she spoke about something 'off topic' during public comments - if that's the same thing as what you described, I'm not so sure.
          1. gruez · · focus · HN ↗
            >during public comments

            You're conveniently omitting the fact it was public comments for a different issue

            >Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.

            1. thereader12 · · focus · HN ↗
              Because the council canceled comments on the Flock issue that had been scheduled for that day.
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