Understood. But whether he “refused to leave” depends on whether he was evicted to begin with.
Meaning, if he stayed in the store and was arrested, and 50 shoppers stayed in the store and were not arrested, then he was “singled out” in the sense that his remaining in the store was construed as “refusing to leave” while the other people’s remaining in the store was not so construed. And the basis for this disparate treatment was his green hat. So it’s relevant.
I’m not clear on whether you’re posing a hypothetical or you think this may really be what transpired.
If this is a hypothetical about ejecting green-hat-wearers then I obviously agree that there is no problem with arresting green hats who refuse, but not arresting others.
But in terms of this actual case, I thought we knew that the Wal-Mart store just closed down entirely. I was taking that as the premise for my assertion that if he was arrested while others doing the same thing were not, then it would be improper to have done so on the basis of his hat. If that premise is wrong, my view would change.
The store was closed, so there shouldn’t have been any shoppers remaining.
Remember, though, that the police are under no obligation to arrest any particular suspected criminal, and can choose which to arrest based on anything they want, except membership of suspect classes. So, if there were 100 shoppers, 50 protesters, and 5 legal observers there, they would be doing nothing wrong by arresting only the protesters and legal observers, or some subset thereof, as they were all breaking the law by trespassing.
You’re close to right, but missing the fact that singling out individuals for arrest based on their exercise of First Amendment rights is unconstitutional. If everyone in the store was trespassing and everyone was equally making an attempt to leave (or not), then singling out the protestors (or perceived protestors) for arrest would be unconstitutional.
Note that I’m not saying that is what happened here. I’m just trying to elucidate the relevant principles. What I think happened was some protestors decided not to leave, so the police arrested a bunch of people who they thought were with them. Some of those caught up, including hat guy, might not have been refusing to leave and if so their arrest was improper. The illegality has nothing to do with the hat.
I don’t know. Your initial post (#2653) was a bit unclear on what precisely it was that Bricker said that you were disagreeing with, and you didn’t quote him. I was just reacting to your statement that green hats had nothing to do with it.
Bricker said:
He reasons that since some protestors refused to leave, and this guy was “participating in the protest by wearing his hat,” it follows that hat guy could be arrested. But this is bad legal reasoning for multiple reasons, explained above. For one, wearing a colorful legal observer hat is not probable cause for being a protestor. And for another, the relevant crime is not “being a protestor” it is “being one of the protestors who refused to leave.” The hat has nothing to do with that.
They don’t have a right to protest on someone else’s property, and arresting people for trespassing, no matter how they choose to single people out for it, has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
Had the protest been outside the store, then it might have done, depending on whether the protest was genuinely peaceable.
You’re conflating a couple of issues, and maybe misunderstanding how First Amendment law works.
They do not have a right to be physically present on private property. If told by the property owner to leave, they can be arrested if they refuse to leave. They do have a protected right to use their voices to speak about issues of public concern in a place open to the public that they have entered legally. If the store decides to close and remove a bunch of people, and some portion of those people refuse to leave, it would be a First Amendment violation to single out those who had been exercising their protected right to speak about issues of public concern.
As I read the article, Mr. Chartreuse Chapeau was there as a “Legal Observer” - i.e. not to participate in the protest directly, but to complain about whatever happened. So when the protest began
[ul][li]Either the store owner asked them to leave and they ignored him, or[/li][li]Seeing from (among other things) Kermit and his snappy headgear that there was going to be a protest, he called the cops and asked what could be done to avoid having his business disrupted.[/li][li]The cops showed up, and advised him that the easiest way to get the protesters out of the store was to close it and order everyone out.[/li][li]The owner did so.[/li][li]Kermit didn’t think the “everybody out” applied to him, and the protesters ignored it except to run off to pet foods and link arms.[/li][li]The cops arrested Kermit because he didn’t leave the store. Saying he was not part of the protest is meaningless - he was there to assist the protest as a “legal observer”, and was wearing a hat that clearly signalled he was part of it.[/li][li]At any rate, he was arrested because he did not leave the store when told to do so by the owner.[/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
[quote=“Shodan, post:2669, topic:695354”]
[ul][li]Saying he was not part of the protest is meaningless - he was there to assist the protest as a “legal observer”, and was wearing a hat that clearly signalled he was part of it.[/li][li]At any rate, he was arrested because he did not leave the store when told to do so by the owner.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
The first bullet is misguided both factually and legally. Legal observers are present at many different kinds of protest. They are, more often than not, completely unaffiliated with the protestors. This particular dude was affiliated with them, it seems, but the fact of his hat was not alone probable cause of that fact. More importantly, being part of the protest is legally irrelevant to whether he was refusing to leave. Either he was or he was not.
The second bullet is legally correct if the alleged fact that he refused to leave is true. I don’t see where you’re getting that from what we know.
I’d still like an explanation as to how the protesters at the WalMart were “racist”.
I’ll confess to finding it amusing considering how often right wingers whine about others “playing the race card”.
No it isn’t. “Legal observer” has no force of law, and as you mention, he was affiliated with the protesters.
Okay, then let’s see reliable cites on the percentage of “legal observers” wearing special hats that are completely unaffiliated with the protesters.
From the article.
The protesters learned that the store was closed, and subsequently ran to the pet food aisle. Mr. Green Hat followed them, in order to observe the police brutality he mentions he was hoping to see.
Regards,
Shodan
Sure, I’ll just boot up shitnoonekeepsstatisticson.com.
Oh no! I can’t find “reliable cites” because “completely unaffiliated” is a nonsense term in this context given that the legal observers are there to monitor the protest. Fortunately, this point is entirely tangential since his “affiliation” as you put it is irrelevant to whether he was trespassing or not.
Why don’t you quote the part that you think says that. Hint: it doesn’t.
It is, however, relevant to whether he was doing his job as a lawyer properly, as being part of an illegal protest is most certainly not what lawyers should be doing.
Do you have any information about how many “legal observers” there are who are affiliated with the police, to observe and make sure that the protesters are obeying the law? Or is this, like so much else in these threads, something that’s only acceptable when it’s done to help people break the law?
Then you shouldn’t have used it, and should not have made the assertion as if it meant something.
Regards,
Shodan
Correct. I’m assuming you’ll ignore the rest.
Monitoring protests, especially when they verge into illegal civil disobedience and the police become involved, is exactly what lawyers should be doing. If you think otherwise, I welcome you to join the bar and get a seat on the bar association with us and let your opinion be heard. For now, yours is fortunately a minority opinion.
You sound like some tinpot dictator. Legal observers aren’t helping anyone break the law. And cops don’t need legal observers. They know their rights, an in any event, don’t get them infringed very often. Protestors do need legal observers because they often have their rights infringed–especially when they engage in civil disobedience. You and the rest of the Fox News crowd no doubt disagrees, but the actual facts and history of federal court cases are indisputable.
What nonsense. The only people who got their rights infringed were Walmart and their employees.
And no, lawyers shouldn’t be trespassing and ignoring police instructions. Regardless of their hat.
We are not talking about a legitimate, authorised protest here, with monitors to check that people behave. We’re talking about an illegal occupation, much like the Occupy bullshit that happened recently. Best thing to do with people like that is give them a small, locked piece of government property to occupy for a good long time.
You’re wise to shift positions to this much more defensible argument. Of course, what you say here is true. It’s also utterly irrelevant to my point, as even the most half-ass reading of my posts today would reveal.
I’ve not shifted my position at all.
Bricker: I appreciate your disciplined posting. Richard Parker has some decent points which I trust you will address, possibly modifying your position somewhat. Tight arguments take time.
Other posters have basically made shit up about what Walmart management did: a few have acknowledged the lack of direct evidence. But while they were shooting their mouths off, I noticed that they didn’t concern themselves with the four* other* legal observers at the scene who were not -you know- black and not arrested by the police. So Bricker: if it were shown that all five legal observers were acting in a similar fashion, do you have a problem with only the black observer being arrested? I’m not asking about legalities. I’m asking on a policy basis.
As I understand it, the Ferguson cops don’t have a problem with such policies. Because they want to send a message to their African American community: we can act with impunity.