For a country that loves free speech, you’d think we’d be able to practice it everywhere. But not if it’s protesting police brutality in a mall. That’s what ten organizers in Minneapolis have found after police brought multiple charges against them like trespassing, disorderly conduct, and unlawful gathering for last month’s December 20 protest at the Mall of America. And that’s not all:
Beyond the reality that these demonstrations were completely peaceful, the random selection and charging of these particular demonstrators with crimes makes no real legal sense. Furthermore, the City of Bloomington is now demanding that protestors pay for the “overtime” charges of police.
America, land of the free, right?
Team Blackness also discussed the whiteness of the Oscar nominations, a funeral service gone horribly awry, and Bill Cosby versus Woody Allen in a game of “who’s the worst.”
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orogeny
Isn’t the inside of a mall actually private property?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Mall is private property. No free speech in there, and if you refuse to leave when asked, you are trespassing.
Find a better case for outrage. God knows there are plenty.
ETA: “free speech” rarely exists in the form most of us think of it as, and only shields you from interference with said speech by the government. High school student on campus? Nope. At work? You can be fired. Plenty of examples. It would be worth a post to delineate what speech rights we have in this society, because they are in reality pretty limited.
burnspbesq
Remember the first five words of the First Amendment?
You do? Great! Now recite them slowly, giving each one the proper emphasis.
“CONGRESS shall make no law.”
Unless they run afoul of some non-discrimination statute, non-governmental property owners can also-byGod-lutely restrict speech on their property. If you are on their property and they ask you to stop violating those restrictions, and you refuse, then in the eyes of the law your status goes from “licensee” to “trespasser.” And yes, you can be arrested for trespassing.
Got it? Good.
P.S. Want to effectively protest police misconduct? In front of police headquarters seems like a GREAT place to do that. But it’s Minnesota, and it’s January, you say? Then don’t wear shorts and flip-flops.
Lavocat
Hey, it’s not like undercover police have ever infiltrated African-American organizations before, amirite?
I guess you can chalk up “freely speaking while black” as another thing that is dangerous to do in this country.
I also guess we’re just lucky that no one was summarily executed.
Lavocat
@orogeny: Yes, but I believe the point being made is that some speech is freer than others.
Shakezula
Protests on private property are not a new thing but this is not a free speech case.
The charges are bullshit and trying to fine people for police overtime is hilarious.
srv
@burnspbesq:
How can you disturb the public peace in a place that isn’t public space?
I understand trespassing, but not this.
Laertes
Seems obvious that if you’re going to quote someone’s tweets in a story, you ought to reach out to them for any further comment or clarification they might want to offer.
You guys seem to be going further, and saying that it’s not kosher to quote a tweet without permission. (18:40) That’s not so obvious. Those are public statements by public figures. Am I mishearing you guys?
SatanicPanic
@orogeny: True, but Pruneyard Shopping Center v Robins established that states can establish free speech protections private property, so mall can’t throw you off if state law says you can protest at malls. California is one of the only states to establish this right, however.
Liberty60
IANAL, but I do know there is a history of case law regarding the limits of free speech on places of public access, such as shopping malls. Cases have been argued about leafleting, protesting, manner of dress, etc.
It isn’t as clear-cut as “This is private property so its just like my living room”- I just don’t know the exact boundaries.
ETA- others here have beat me to it.
Which is sort of the point, for me- the boundaries of what speech/ action is or isn’t lawful in a shopping mall aren’t so obvious that a reasonable citizen can always know when they are breaking the law.
And as we have seen from the countless cases of cops demanding people stop filming them, it is perfectly reasonable to assume the cops don’t know the line either.
Mike in NC
Rename it the Mall of Real Americans.
jonas
But can you open carry in the mall? That’s the only freedom that *really* matters, after all.
Shakezula
@srv: Criminal trespass will be interesting because I THINK they’ll have to prove some other crime before the trespass charge will stick. Obviously just entering the mall doesn’t constitute trespass.
SatanicPanic
@Liberty60:
This is a good point. Mall ownership isn’t always obvious to someone who just goes there either.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@jonas: Yes. Yes. Are these mall owners true freedom haters? Have the banned the Holy Handgun from the premises? Am I not allowed to clean my Holy Handgun on the premises of this mall, or introduce an innocent child to its wonder and positive message? Are groups of my fellow Holy Handgun owners not allowed to congregate for a moment, in order to contemplate the sacred miracle of parkerized finishes and 20-round magazines? When will the oppression end?
This, this is the true measure of freedom.
M. Bouffant
I for one welcome our new Mall Overlords as they make all space “private” & shut everyone up.
Theobald Schmidt
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
*eyeroll*
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/MOA_bans_guns.jpg
buddy h
When I see these massive street protests in other countries, and they’ve got these huge, ancient town squares, and I realize these are the public commons, designed for citizens to congregate and be free.
Then I look around upstate NY (god’s country, as they call it. “He can keep it” as Groucho said) and I see suburbanization has destroyed any public spaces, and so these private malls have taken the place of main street, except you’re not a citizen in the mall, you’re a consumer.
Where ya gonna go to protest? On the side of the northway I-87?
I remember during the Bush years, a guy was kicked out of crossgates mall for wearing an anti-war shirt.
patrick II
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
They should put planned parenthood offices inside of malls. Watch how quickly the Supremes decide that you can protest in the common areas of the mall due to free speech rights.
Gordon
Free speech on mall property would likely depend on state law. In “Pruneyard” the Supreme Court found that the U.S. Constitution didn’t protect leafletters, but the California State Constitution did.
Bill Arnold
From an old Laurie Anderson piece (“Private Property”), in her stage voice and timing,
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yeah, kinda, usually helpfully assisted in financing by 10 year tax breaks and other tricks … could be an Enterprise Zone for example (a total Reagan-joke that needs to die).
That’s the whole nub of the problem, maybe privatizing public space was a big fat mistake and we shouldn’t have done that?
Another Holocene Human
@Gordon: Great. Leafletting. The pop-up gifs of IRL.
taxpayer subsidized
I’d be more comfortable with the private space argument if MOA hadn’t just requested and received a large tax-payer subsidy ($250 million) to expand the size of their property. And, MOA encourages people to walk in around the mall for exercise during the winter. Taxpayer subsidized public-space in my book. Minor charges might be fine, but 90 days plus thousands in fines is outrageous.
NCSteve
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Given the unique nature of the Mall of America, as opposed to malls generally, there is at least some argument to be made that it’s a “quasi-public space” where the First Amendment trumps private property rights in the pubic areas.
currants
@buddy h: Yeah, a bunch of protesters closed down i93 (Boston area) this week and local media dopes are calling it ‘not quite terrorism but just about’ and a local pol wants to pass a law… (quelle surprise). I’m not very hooked in to media but I hope some activist got on messaging against that stat.
Another Holocene Human
@buddy h:
Well, that’s completely fallacious, they were designed to set up temporary markets, maybe weekly or monthly or at festivals. And for other kinds of gatherings. However, they are useful for political actions. And there are some more modern squares that you see on the news (usually much larger than the ancient ones). Sometimes they have Soviet era names.
Anyhoo, yeah, sprawl is kind of an anti-riot device. A very, very expensive anti-riot device. It maybe be part of the reason we don’t have general strikes … because we did … a long time ago … before the automobile.
While whites were atomizing themselves in the ‘burbs, their dog whistling politicians picked their pockets and robbed them blind. Now their children are repopulating the cities (often displacing long-time residents). They’re occupying squares. City dwellers are marching into highways and shutting down traffic (the artery from parasitical suburb into the economic engine, from which they will extract their salary and leave). We live in a time of change.
jl
Speaking of free speech:
Ben Carson likens Islamic State to American patriots
‘ “They got the wrong philosophy, but they’re willing to die for what they believe, while we are busily giving away every belief and every value for the sake of political correctness,” he said as Republican officials from across the country interrupted him with applause. “We have to change that.” ‘
http://news.yahoo.com/ben-carson-likens-islamic-state-american-patriots-224608888–election.html
I was worried that Carson’s comments would mean a premature exit of his distinctive and unique voice from GOP politics. But the GOP officials thought what he said was just swell and applauded. So, looks like another entry in the annals of GOP outreach. This time to all those non-mass-murderers out there. Not sure how large that demo is, but there must be some.
Bob In Portland
Well, this looks like a good place to write something under the banner of free speech. During all that kerfluffle yesterday I got a message from “Les Nessman”, which I just saw this morning. Here is my response for Les and any BJers not currently occupied with gay-bashing:
Michael G
“Isn’t the inside of a mall actually private property”
Yes, it is. But we as a country value free speech (so I’m told).
As all the public spaces are privatized, are we just going to shrug our shoulders and say “whaddya gonna do, capitalism rules all” or are we going to try to find a way to preserve the thing that was valued?
Mike J
@Another Holocene Human:
So it’s bad to live in the suburbs and it’s bad to live in the city. Are you suggesting they should just hover?
buddy h
@Another Holocene Human: Well, that’s completely fallacious, they were designed to set up temporary markets, maybe weekly or monthly or at festivals. And for other kinds of gatherings.
Well, I didn’t make my point well. I was trying to say that you’re a citizen in a public square, whether there are temporary markets or festivals or whatever. No one can tell you “sorry, this is private property, you’ll have to leave if you’re going to wear that anti-war shirt.”
I spent twenty-two years living in a small upstate ny “town” which consisted of some strip malls, winding roads with no sidewalks, not a single bookstore, and every store was part of a national chain. We finally got out, and I’m happy as hell about it.
catclub
wow, this is a big deal:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html
asset seizures stopped by Holder.
Actually stopped. No, but removing the incentives for greedy ones.
Patricia Kayden
@patrick II: Great point. Why can’t Planned Parenthood argue that its property is private and anti-choice activists cannot protest on its premises? I don’t get it. If protesters are restricted from activism within the Mall of America, why aren’t protesters restricted from Planned Parenthood property?
Villago Delenda Est
@CONGRATULATIONS!: However, the City of Bloomington imposing what amounts to a “speech tax” is another kettle of fish.
Mall owners, frankly, want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be welcoming, public spaces, but they don’t want to go along with some of the things that welcoming, public spaces require.
jl
@orogeny: @Michael G:
The inside of the mall is private property, but that does not mean the general public there surrenders its right to equal protection and due process. Seems there is the matter of the arrests being random. IANAL, but that seems to be a problem to me.
Civil disobedience expressed as an illegal demonstration implies willingness to suffer legal consequences. But if they were causing problems enough to interfere with the operations of the mall and inconveniencing the owners, then there should be an orderly and legal process for dealing with it, not random harassment.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden: Because Planned Parenthood is, by its very nature, a liebral organization and not real ‘merkins.
Another Holocene Human
@currants: Everything’s terrorism in Boston, even viral marketing. It’s the angry clown face to Boston Strong, which is inveterate pants-pissing.
The activists, btw, picked the right fucking highway by blocking I-93. Especially from the South. That’s where the real parasites come into the city because it’s the non-tolled approach, therefore, their infrastructure was paid for by the West and North approaches, which is BULLSHIT. And the city dwellers themselves paid for their fucking train lines which they threw 500 tantrums over and added literally hundreds of millions to the cost. (Nouveau riche twats in Hingham, technically I think they take Route 3.)
I was looking at railfan videos last night and went to MBTA website to orient myself, looked at their current spider map and went fucking ragey. Those fucking bus rapid transit ideologues had made this mess all over the majority-minority neighborhoods in the map (pretty much everything due South or SW of South Station) trying to pretend that some tangle of bus lines was the same as having a grade separated subway or trolley line. Bullshit! On the north of the map you can see the crosstown bus lines traced along the subway fingers and that makes sense, I used to ride those lines all the time. But in Dorchester? Ruggles? What a bunch of crap. The traffic there is terrible, the buses are slow and late, and they deserve rail transit like Cambridge and Brookline and Newton and Somer-fucking-ville and Milton and Reve-yah and Lynn. Oh, they’re spending millions to restore trolley service to the North (=Italian) suburbs. But African-Americans, Caribbean immigrants, Vietnamese? Fuck you! Buses are good enough for you–buses in traffic! And they even spent millions downtown building a bus causeway just to make sure they stayed buses. Because that’s careful planning for the future. What a bunch of putrid assholes. This and they’ve had tons of proof for years that rubber tire pollution from buses contributes to childhood asthma which is pretty endemic in Dorchester. Well, that’s just an inconvenient fact we’ll shove under the rug. Atlanta, which has a Black mayor, just opened a new trolley line in the King Historic District. Huh. How about that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bob In Portland: HODOR!
Another Holocene Human
ps–this is no knock on Menino, he supported trolley restoration on the Silver Line and held up the rebuilding of I think it was Blue Hills Ave in Dorchester until it became clear that the MBTA would not under any circumstances be part of that. If they wouldn’t have obstructed it wouldn’t have cost much to put the pads for the rails in the road at that time and build center reservations and so on.
jl
@Patricia Kayden: I think that is a good point. It also means that if protests are restricted on Planned Parenthood property and the cops are willing to deal with the problem, random legal harassment of the protesters is not a good approach.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub: A very positive development.
I’m sure the usual suspects will be absolutely outraged at this handcuffing of the stormtroopers.
Howard Beale IV
@jonas: Not in Minnesota, you can’t.
Michael G
Protestors *are* barred from PP property. But they can protest just next to it, which since PP usually doesn’t have a large property, is usually close by.
That is, they didn’t have a large property until now…
http://www.theonion.com/articles/planned-parenthood-opens-8-billion-abortionplex,20476/
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: The protesters stay on the sidewalk, if they cross into Planned Parenthood property they can be arrested for trespassing.
bluefoot
@Another Holocene Human: You can say that again. Just like the bullsh*it animosity against the “Cape Flyer” that meant that us regular folk (i.e. “those people”) could get to the Cape on the weekend without a car. And now there are noises of eminent domain if the Olympics do come to town. Shall we predict who will bear the brunt?
buddy h
I admit I am a crank on the subject of rail vs. the automobile. It pains me when I see progressives point to the 1950s interstate highway system as a model of what good government can achieve.
My utopia would be light rail, trolleys, increased interstate rail, everywhere. I hate that we’ve been made so car dependent. I hate the crooked car salesmen, I hate the crooked mechanics, I hate the highways where if you go less than 70 mph they want to run you off the road, I hate sharing the highway with huge tractor trailers.
What really bugs me is seeing former rail lines being converted into jogging paths.
We got the hell out of the little sprawl town we lived in; moved to a small city where I can walk to the bank, library, movie theater, coffee shop, and not be slave to a car.
Suzanne
Out here in PHX, PlannedParenthood gets very little protest, because they’re usually in big strip malls. Protestors are blocked from entering the parking lots. If they protest, 95% of the time they’re yelling at people going to the Greek restaurant or the dry cleaners or Subway. I have often thought this would be the best way to deal with this issue.
Shakezula
@currants: In the town where they’ve had historically important protests and terrorist attacks no less.
jl
@buddy h:
” What really bugs me is seeing former rail lines being converted into jogging paths.”
I am not aware of any rail lines being abandoned in order to turn them into jogging paths. They were abandoned for other reasons. There is very nice jogging/bike path being constructed in my home town on an abandoned rail line. However, the abandoned rail line is just a segment that went through the middle of town, was very unsafe, and stalled traffic. So, about five miles of track was rerouted around downtown.
I don’t mind bringing up interstate hightways. It just serves to remind people that government projects that do not have a reliably estimated money payoff can be very useful, not wasteful boondoggles.
Belafon
@Patricia Kayden: Because sidewalks are public places.
Another Holocene Human
@bluefoot: F*CK The F*CKING OL*MPICS RIGHT UP THE *RSE!!!
Another Holocene Human
@jl: There were federal programs to do land transfers, even a program called “rails to trails” (intended as bike not jogging trails but, oddly, no lights for night riding, not transportation???). Some areas considered it land banking but once recreational use comes in it’s hard to replace with rail. Depends on your area but sometimes local gov’t or regional gov’t and railroad will effect land swaps, these aren’t all just abandoned for no reason lines, there are reasons. Or RRs are allowed to consolidate making a branch redundant. Rail is no longer in retrenchment and we need those ROWs back. Oh and there were also deals to get ROWs and then run truck traffic on them, they got about halfway there…
Another Holocene Human
@bluefoot: Well, you could always take the ferry to P-town, lol.
Yeah, I know. I bet the NIMBYs were raging when they saw how good the ridership was. Hard to kill something that requires little subsidy.
Buddy H
@jl: I am not aware of any rail lines being abandoned in order to turn them into jogging paths. They were abandoned for other reasons. There is very nice jogging/bike path being constructed in my home town on an abandoned rail line. However, the abandoned rail line is just a segment that went through the middle of town, was very unsafe, and stalled traffic. So, about five miles of track was rerouted around downtown.
I didn’t mean to imply the rail lines were abandoned in order to create the jogging paths. The lines had been abandoned since the late 1950s, when the automobiles took over.
You say the rail line in your home town was abandoned because it stalled traffic. It’s good that it was re-routed around downtown. You’re fortunate. In places I’ve seen, the tracks are abandoned altogether. And are cars flying through a town at twice the speed limit really safer than a rail line? In the sprawl town I left, every year someone would be hit by a car while walking along the road. I remember one beautiful high school girl was killed this way, about ten years ago. And at night, the roads would be full of teenagers speeding around the backroads. Too many fatalities. “Excessive speed” was always quoted as the factor. But these kids had no options. Of course they shouldn’t have been driving recklessly, but if they wanted to take a date to a movie, or go hang out at the mall (no downtown) they had to drive. If only they’d had the choice to hop on a trolley or light rail.
RaflW
As a Twin Citian, I’ve struggled with the decision to protest at the MegaMall. I absolutely get the anger and the need to act. I marched in the very frosty cold in Minneapolis (on a public street, in front of a police station) just a few days before the MOA action. I just didn’t understand the Mall of America as stand-in for police & prosecutorial malfeasance a.k.a. black men dying and cops getting off totally free.
That said, I also find the whole idea that this mall in particular is “private” to be deeply disturbing. The Mall of America has received 10s of millions of dollars of various public subsidies. Several times.
Of course the MN Supreme Court (and SCOTUS I believe) had to rule that it doesn’t matter. Because if subsidies made big projects public, then many of the downtown office and condo towers would also be places where the public could peaceably assemble in efforts to express their allegedly constitutionally protected right.
I get that as a matter of settled case law, its just too late. But as a moral matter, the MOA being private is utter bullshit.
balconesfault
Huh … Woolworth’s should have thought of that 50 years ago …
Cervantes
@Another Holocene Human:
Re your second paragraph, re I-93, are you saying something about the number of toll-booths north of the city vs. south? I’m missing the point.
And re the third paragraph, are you saying there are not five (six? seven?) Red Line stops in and near Dorchester?
Another Holocene Human
@Buddy H: Thankfully traffic-related fatalities are slowly dropping. Vehicles miles traveled are dropping and also some safety enhancements (to roads and to cars) have reduced the fatalities greater than vehicles miles traveled stalling out or dropping alone would have AND better emergency response times and trauma treatment is a factor as well.
currants
@Another Holocene Human: YES. There’s a pretty good grassroots enviro-justice group working on transit for those areas (shout out for ACE!) too, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
Arithmomancy
As another Twin Cities resident, I honestly am not particularly outraged either by this group’s decision to protest, nor the charges brought to the organizers. They were warned of possible charges if they protested inside the mall. The protesters decided to do it anyway, keeping up a time-honored tradition of peacefully protesting in a space deemed unlawful. (The protesters were offered space to protest outside in a nearby unfinished parking lot, but hey, it was like 15 degrees. Nobody’s going to go stand around outside.) The protest went pretty much without a hitch (10 people arrested out of 2000 protesters, which seems like a pretty darn non-crazy protest to me, mall security probably nailed more shoplifters than that in the same time period), everyone dispersed, life went on.
The MOA was afraid the protest would scare away holiday shoppers (which it did), that’s why they’re bitching. I don’t really have a lot of sympathy for that. 2000 people would barely fill up one floor of the Rotunda, and I’m sure the fledgling pop stars and various motivational speakers that come to perform in the Rotunda are way more disruptive than this protest was. The MOA should’ve just let them protest, limited the allotted space to the Rotunda and maybe kept it to a specific time slot, and been done with it.
As for the MOA or any other mall in MN being private, well, they all are. All places of business are private property. If they had held the protest at a courthouse or a city hall, then it would be a different story. They chose the MOA because they would have a huge audience (sensible if you want to publicize your message) and because it is a transit hub, so a lot of people could use public transportation to get there if they wished.
In any case, I guess I just consider it a successful protest because it proceeded according to plan, and the vast majority of participants behaved peaceably and nobody was harmed. Hopefully the organizers will just end up with a charge of trespassing or something and live to fight another day.
No, you cannot bring a gun into the MOA. There are signs at all the entrances that say guns are banned on the premises. A lot of businesses around town have the same signs.
Arithmomancy
In regard to the topic of rail lines repurposed into paved recreational trails, the Twin Cities has tons of those too. But you know, they can repurpose the trails back into rail lines if need be, that’s why using them for jogging trails is so popular for defunct tracks. Several of our big trails have a sign that says something to the effect of, “Might be used for light trail at some point in the future”.
Although I’m mystified as to why any of those trails would have lights for night riding. If you want to ride at night, the light goes on your bike or on you. One of the best things about those trails is the lack of light pollution.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: Good points, but how many abandoned rails lines in surburbs and rural areas are going to be of any use for anything but biking and walking? The bike/jogging trail in my hometown has plenty of lights and is heavily used, even though only half built.
Wherever feasible, I think the abandoned lines should be used for transit. I know there was a big fight over abandoned lines around the LA area and Inland Empire area, and east to Riverside in Southern California. Big controversy over whether the rights of way should be retained for transit. But those were not abandoned freight lines, those were the abandoned old fashioned pre WWII intra and inter urban trolleys that were replaced by freeways and cars. Edit: so, I would agree, ‘rails to trails’ for them would be a big waste.
kc
Actually, no, I really wouldn’t expect to have the right to go onto private property and be able to say and do whatever I want.