Thread

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

218 points · 261 comments · latexr

p_j_w · 1790179654 · focus · HN ↗
>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
Two sentences showing precisely why no one can trust the police. Not only are they completely unaccountable, but they will trample your first amendment rights and do so with smug amusement in full public view. These are the kinds of people we're supposed to be happy to give massive surveillance power to?
1. ostensible · 1790180733 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
  1. dmos62 · 1790180845 · focus · HN ↗
    The implication is that holding up middle-fingers is illegal?
    ostensible · 1790181264 · focus · HN ↗
    The middle finger itself is protected speech. It does not create immunity for disruptive conduct at a public meeting, and omitting the conduct immediately before the arrest is misleading.
    She got what she deserved. You can criticize. You cannot disrupt a public meeting and abuse people from the floor.
    pesus · 1790181778 · focus · HN ↗
    To be clear, you think someone being loud in a public meeting deserves to be violently dragged from the room because you're offended by it? What other speech do you find violent removal worthy?
    Edit: I was shadow banned for my comments in this thread. You have been warned - no dissent against Flock (YC17) allowed.
    dekhn · 1790182450 · focus · HN ↗
    The way you write is very accusatory and has very simiplified logic.
    Many of us can be sympathetic while also knowing that disrupting a city council meeting is usually not an effective form of protest.
    pesus · 1790182637 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe you should direct this comment towards the person I responded to and their litany of comments, because this applies far more there. I am far less concerned about hand wringing over being slightly impolite to people advocating for violent violation of people protesting the police state.
    Edit: this comment officially got me shadow banned and I can no longer comment. The irony and hypocrisy is off the charts. Don't offend the mods or their friends, people. Only they are allowed to get "emotional" and advocate for violence.
    dekhn · 1790183027 · focus · HN ↗
    The person you're replying to are making factual comments based on experience. You are not; you are working from emotion, and interpreting the article in an unrealistic way.
    chaps · 1790184987 · focus · HN ↗
    Out of curiosity, have you ever been arrested?
    dekhn · 1790185761 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I have not. But also, why does that matter? I would fully expect to be arrested if I was civilly disobedient.
    chaps · 1790186559 · focus · HN ↗
    Just trying to gauge what your experience is with law enforcement. You seem interested in having a facts based conversation so I think it's important to understand where you're coming from first.
    Do you think all forms of civil disobedience are worthy of arrest? Asking genuinely.
    dekhn · 1790188485 · focus · HN ↗
    My experience with law enforcement is limited to getting a ticket for using the commuter lane.
    The question you're asking is a subtle one. To the extent I can make an absolute statment, it's likely many forms of civil disobedience are not worthy of arrest, but the person being disobedient has to expect the possibility of being arrested anyway (and then possibly getitng a day in court). Note in this case the individual was charged with disrupting the peace, given a ticket, and released- more or less what I'd expect to happen in a case like this.
    chaps · 1790189455 · focus · HN ↗
    Got it. Couple more questions:
    - Have you ever spoken at a public meeting? How'd your experience go?
    - Do you think the person thought they had zero possibility of getting arrested for that?
    dekhn · 1790189807 · focus · HN ↗
    I have spoken at public meetings. It was all routine. I signed up, spoke about the topic of interest, kept within the time limit, and was polite. It was also ineffective.
    I don't think the individual who was arrested thought they would be arrested. From how I read the article, they were just confused about whether they could speak about the topic they wanted to speak about in that part of the meeting, and then, when things got heated, immediately went to giviing people the finger. It's not really surprising- these events can get very heated and people's instincts take over. I think if she had an indication she was going to be arrested, she likely would have waited until the topic came up in a future meeting.
    BTW, from the nature of your questions and my experience on the internet, you may be trying to lay a trap where you use my words to show a logical contradiction (or you could just be asking questions in good faith- hard to tell on the internet these days). If that's your goal, please wrap up, I don't want to sit here answering questions about my beliefs.
    chaps · 1790190656 · focus · HN ↗
    Not setting up a trap, I'm just genuinely interested in where you're coming from because, frankly, I don't get it. Sorry you've had bad experiences on the internet and thanks for your patience.
    Why do you think your public comment was ineffective?
    dekhn · 1790191190 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't get what you don't get?
    City Councils are business meetings. They typically follow an agenda, and have rules and sometimes there are court cases around people speaking at city council. My fundamental attitude is that if you want to contribute to a city council meeting without being arrested, you cannot assume your free speech rights trump all the other rules and practices being followed. In this case, the individual who was arrested violated a rule. The council acted within its rights (subject to any future court cases); personally I think it was a bit overhanded, but if they hadn't acted, the meeting would very likely have devolved into chaos.
    My beliefs are based on standard social studies courses about US civic society combined with watching the Berkeley City Council meeting repeatedly get disrupted by individuals.
    For the comment- it was ineffective because it failed to convince the council to vote the way I wanted (and this was so long ago that I can't even remember the topic.). Here's an article from my hometown describing somebody else who was more disruptive: <a href="https://www.courant.com/2000/05/16/city-watchdog-sydney-libby-dies/" rel="nofollow">https://www.courant.com/2000/05/16/city-watchdog-sydney-libb.... """City officials used to complain that arresting Libby mattered little because the judicial system seemed not to take him seriously. That changed in April 1997 when an exasperated Superior Court judge, tired of Libby’s courtroom behavior, threw him in jail and ordered Libby to undergo a mental competency exam.""" (we had several other people who would routinely disrupt as well)
    chaps · 1790192616 · focus · HN ↗
    What I'm not really understanding is why "a bit overhanded" is a small throwaway point. Speaking from Chicago where we have very notorious public speakers at city council and it's one of those that's-just-what-happens things. I've also done a fair amount of research/reporting on criminal courts where the idea of arresting someone for giving the middle finger to city council absolutely fucking floors me. So a lot of my questions are oriented around trying to understand why getting arrested is such a (seemingly) small deal.
    - Do you think Springfield could have handled the situation better without arresting her?
    dekhn · 1790196221 · focus · HN ↗
    I was going to say that she wasn't arrested for giving the mayor the middle finger, but I re-read the entire article (which has been updated since this was originally posted) and the citation does in fact say "disrupting the peace... gave mayor the finger". Well, that was dumb (on the part of the cop who wrote that).
    chaps · 1790197606 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks for joining me on this ride. Have a good one.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.