A man was arrested at the Crossgates Mall in Albany NY. He was asked to remove his shirt which had Peace slogans on it or leave the mall. He refused and the police came and arrested him for tresspassing.
Which one of these smilies is for flabbergasted?
Stupid Albanians.
Well, you know what they say.
Don’t CrossGates.
Looks like the US is less and less the Land of the Free. For its’ sake, I’m hoping that it’s still the Home of the Brave; more and more I fear you’ll need that bravery to restore liberty and justice.
That’s the kind of no-nonsense clear thinking that I love about my home town…
So anyone else surprised the Orwell was only off by 19 years or so?
the = that. Need coffee.
I read a different article that said the shirts were purchased in the mall. If I owned that store I would be pretty pissed if mall security was chasing people out of the mall for buying my products.
Maybe he has really, really hairy back and shoulders.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. He thought if he took off the t-shirt he’d be a walking advertisment for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
I wonder if the Mall owners know that they look like complete jackasses?
I was kicked out of the same mall last year for having accepted (ONLY ACCEPTED!) information from someone who was handing out political pamphlets on Socialism. Bastards.
Damn… this mall sucks. Someone ought to go there wearing a “I love Stalin” t-shirt, complete with a hammer & sickle on the back.
Ehh… a mall is a privately owned business.
As thickheaded as the management was, they were within their rights to say who and who not are welcome as guests in their building. When the welcome was revoked, the two men were technically trespassing, and subject to legal removal.
While this is true, it doesn’t stop the mall owners from looking like jackasses.
They don’t just look like them.
Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen Ron Jeremy and Mohammed in the same room.
Didn’t you get the, uh, latest discreet envelope then, adam?
Technically you are correct. Technically a mall is a private business and can boot out people if they want too. However, a mall is in the business of providing a place for retailers to do their business. Retailers like malls because of traffic (people, lots of people). If the mall owner was exercising their technical rights to have people arrested for any little old thing, I would, if I were a retailer there, make a HUGE fuss that the mall is limiting customer and traffic - the very things I pay a premium to be in the mall for.
That’s a contractual issue between the mall and the retailers, adam yax. It doesn’t give the man who’s been ordered to leave private property any legal justification for refusing.
The title of the OP is disingenuous. The man was arrested for trespass. If I tell you you have to wear “I (heart) Saddam” shirts to shop in my mall, then you have two choices: wear the shirts to refuse to shop in my mall. If you try to barge in anyway, I am well within my rights to call the police and have you warned, and then arrested for trespass.
This foxnews coverage gives a bit more info. The mallfolks claim that the men were doing more than sitting in the food court, they were “disrupting shoppers” and a complaint was made about them. And 3 months ago 20 peace activists were asked to leave the mall (and did so without any arrests).
If we assume those “activists” were staging some sort of demonstration for peace, and that the most recent 2 were “activists” as well also attempting to rally support for the cause, I think it would be clear that the mallfolks were well within their rights. Malls are intended for commercial transactions – folks not there in that pursuit may disrupt it. Whether non-commercial activity is loitering by teenagers, rallying by Klan members, or protesting government actions by goodhearted people, there are more appropriate forums for these activities. The mallfolks have a right to ask that it be conducted elsewhere, and to back up that request if it is refused. They have no obligation to provide a forum for that activity.
That said, I realize that these two gentlemen alleged that they were doing nothing but wearing the shirts, and that asking them to leave because of only that certainly smacks of over-reaction. But given the earlier incident the mall is probably on “orange alert” and poised to Fife-style “Nip it! Nip it in the bud!” And we have a few hourly employees who are trying to do the job they were told to do.
I would have left and not come back. But if they were doing more than sipping an Orange Julius, they should simply move their vigil elsewhere.