Going strictly by the book here (a rarity in view of the chaos around us):
While I recognize the US Constitution protects the “right to assemble”, still there are matters of public safety and public disruption that must be considered - akin to the right to free speech vs. yelling “fire” in a movie theatre. Technically, aren’t these protest marches alone (ignoring the violence, arson, and looting) illegal? I thought permits and advanced noticed were required for such public marches. Wikipedia does not answer my question, but suggests that the public cannot protest en masse (see “common constraints” within 1st link, near top of article) based on existing precedent. Within the 2nd Wiki link, please see the sub-heading “time, place, manner restrictions”.
Your thoughts? Perhaps a legal eagle will fly by and share some wisdom.
If a protest group had to apply for permission first, and if the permission were denied, then there would be no right to assemble peaceably and petition for redress of grievance.
If you had to fill out a permit form to buy a gun…and the permit was very frequently denied, the second amendment would be meaningless.
Since the First Amendment says the city pretty much has to say yes anyway, the protest can’t be intrinsically illegal.
Are we talking about the protests in Baltimore? If so, then yeah, they are legal…you don’t have to file for a permit to protest something like that. The illegal part was that Baltimore set a curfew and some of the protesters ignored it…and that got some of them arrested.
Obviously the ‘protesters’ who were protesting by looting, burning and such were doing illegal stuff, since that’s generally breaking into a store to grab a bunch of stuff (or burning some cars or other buildings, breaking stuff or beating up some old folks), even if you are really pissed off about some guy you heard was killed, isn’t considered a valid form of protest.
I guess that it is up to me to report what eyewitnesses said before the riot occurred.
Police showed up in full armor and riot gear, as though they were spoiling for a fight. Then, when the high school where this happened let out, and kids started piling onto the busses, the cops stopped the busses, preventing them from leaving, then made the school kids already on the busses to get off the busses. They also closed the subway terminal the student would have used to leave the area. (I understand that they would not want more people coming into the area, but they could have let kids on the trains, but let no one off.)
The police also closed off the streets so that the parents of the kids had no way to pick them up and take them home.
Is this how YOU would disperse a crowd, by preventing anyone from leaving?
What kind of message did they think they were sending the kids? “We’ve got weapons, and no, you can’t go home!”
The scene I just described was reported by teachers and administrators unable to leave the school, and by nearby residents. Was that report from The Onion and I just didn’t realize it?
It should probably be noted that there were SIX DAYS of completely peaceful protests that the media completely ignored. It was only when people started setting fires that the news thought it was “news”.
What news do you get? I saw the story on CNN both about the incident and about protests in Baltimore before things blew up. It wasn’t a top story until the riots, for sure, but it wasn’t completely ignored either.
