Jesus Bloody Christmas.

[camwyn]

What kind of stinking head-up-the-ass idiot decided to pull this nonsense?

Lawyer Arrested for Wearing a 'Peace' T-Shirt

Tue March 4, 2003 07:55 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall.

According to the criminal complaint filed on Monday, Stephen Downs was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Give Peace A Chance" that he had just purchased from a vendor inside the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York, near Albany.

"I was in the food court with my son when I was confronted by two security guards and ordered to either take off the T-shirt or leave the mall," said Downs.

When Downs refused the security officers' orders, police from the town of Guilderland were called and he was arrested and taken away in handcuffs, charged with trespassing "in that he knowingly enter(ed) or remain(ed) unlawfully upon premises," the complaint read.

Downs said police tried to convince him he was wrong in his actions by refusing to remove the T-shirt because the mall "was like a private house and that I was acting poorly.

"I told them the analogy was not good and I was then hauled off to night court where I was arraigned after pleading not guilty and released on my own recognizance," Downs told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Downs is the director of the Albany Office of the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates complaints of misconduct against judges and can admonish, censure or remove judges found to have engaged in misconduct.

Calls to the Guilderland police and district attorney, Anthony Cardona and to officials at the mall were not returned for comment.

Downs is due back in court for a hearing on March 17.

He could face up to a year in prison if convicted.

Comments

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

What the crack?

I don't see any way that this makes any sense in any universe.

[firestrike.livejournal.com]

Technically, he's guilty as charged. The mall is private property and he was asked to leave by a properly identified authority.

Now, as for the guards telling him to take off his shirt or leave, that's a load o' crap. Mucking great discrimination suit (which the mall will settle out of court, since they don't have a chance of winning it) and quite possibly termination of the guards in question. Possibly a supervisor as well, since calling the cops probably had to be approved.

I expect that charges will be dropped, as the mall won't want to make things any worse for themselves.

Still a serious case of WTF!?! though.

Sadly, I don't have to wonder how those morons made it through the licensing process. At least in California, it's designed so that it's impossible to fail.

-M

[mountainspeak.livejournal.com]

There are times, I am very grateful that I live in Canada...

[batyatoon]

The part I can't get over is that the mallcops were objecting to him wearing a t-shirt that he had just bought in the same mall.

[camwyn]

According to an MSNBC redition I've seen of this same incident, the lawyer and his son had the shirts made up at a print-a-t-shirt shop or stand. So it's not as if the mall were selling Give Peace a Chance shirts to the unwary; this was a custom thing.

The MSNBC version also indicated that it was some mall employee or other who asked the security guards to tell the man to get rid of the shirt, and that his son removed his own peace-themed shirt, but the man refused. There was also something about the mall having signs at the entrances saying attire likely to cause a disruption was not permitted in the mall, which I suppose is where the meddling employee figured justification came from.

It's not a government thing, and as several people have pointed out elsewhere, the local police had very little choice in the matter. It was the mall people getting completely overzealous. Unless the man was at the center of an incipient riot or people were threatening to do some kind of harm if he/his message weren't removed, I don't see where the shirt could constitute a disruption or disturbance.

I'm just waiting for the legal guns to be brought out. I find it very hard to believe that the mall employee's decision can in any way be compared to Schenk v. United States - the court decision that free speech is not permitted when it presents a clear and present danger, with the example given being shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre. Unless a reasonable person could believe that his mere presence with the shirt was about to cause a riot, the mall hasn't got a leg to stand on.