Re: [OT] Teens face 10 years in prison for riding over pride flag on bicycles

Robin Miller <robin.miller@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Adam H. Kerman wrote:

suzeeq <suzeeq@imbris.com> wrote:

On 6/23/2024 11:27 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Robin Miller <robin.miller@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

Leo Kearse, the presenter of this video, is correct: the rules of the
Alphabet Mafia have taken on the feel of blasphemy laws in the Muslim
countries. This is particularly evident in the horrendous overcharging
of three Spokane teens for riding over a local pride flag on bicycles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtS-c4nPJtQ [`12 minutes]

Overcharging? It wasn't even a crime to ride their bicyles in the first
place!

I love how the video clip of the interview of the lesbian witness shows
an automobile driving over the very same painted pavement as we see over
her right shoulder. I didn't see the felony arrest.

It appears that what we have here is a case of bullying children because
that's what we can get away with.

Every day this NG is filled with examples of why it's become such a
cesspool.

Here is a news story and the police statement:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/teens-arrested-after-scooters-leave-marks-on-pride-crosswalk/ar-BB1nSroe

https://my.spokanecity.org/police/news/2024/06/06/multiple-arrests-make-after-downtown-pride-mural-is-vandalized/

This happened on June 5, 18 days ago, but is now being widely shared on
right-wing media. These kids were repeatedly riding over an area
described as a "street mural" in order to deface it. The area had
recently been repainted after someone else had intentionally damaged it
using a flammable liquid. The area, according to the police statement,
was "clearly marked to keep traffic away as it was just re-painted to
repair previous damage."

These kids should have been arrested if they were intentionally damaging
anything painted on the street as a street mural. And if it had been a
US flag I doubt anyone would be complaining.

While the kids were charged with 1st Degree Malicious Mischief, a class
B felony for which the maximum sentence is 10 years, of course they
would not receive anything like that even if they are convicted. They
would probably be put on probation.

In advance of pride parades in Chicago and various suburbs, the parade
routes are lined with decorations installed temporarily on municipal
lightpoles. That can be done with permission in a way that enforcing
laws against vandalism of the decorations as crimes doesn't violate equal
protection of the right to free speech.

I'm going to continue to disagree. This is a matter of government
restrictions on free speech. The mural, an act of expression, is the free
speech of the artists who painted it. They had permission. However, as it
was painted on a driving surface of an open roadway in the public way,
that permission cannot possibly prohibit someone else from driving over
it, even if the way it was driven over defaced the mural.

Free speech in the public way is a natural right, not a privilege that the
city of Spokane may selectively grant to the artists precluding the free
speech of those who disagree. It's also a civil right in the Constitution
of the United States. Therefore, the criminal charges are a denial of
equal protection of a civil right.

As a secondary matter, a mural painted on a driving surface in the
public way IS NOT a painted marking as a traffic control device based on
the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, a standard published by
FHwA as promulgated by AASHTO. Now, it doesn't have the force of law and
I'm not sure of its status as a federal regulation (to the extent that
the standard is adopted in a given state, it is a state regulation that
local public works departments must implement), but it's always a
defense to  citation of a traffic violation that signs and markings were
knocked over, misplaced, installed incorrectly, or worn out that the
driver had no notice of the condition being enforced.

Similarly, the boys should be able to use the fact of the nonstandard
pavement marking as a defense against the felony charge.

All I saw in the video were traffic violations that would have been
proper charges, not crimes to be charged.

Wouldn't it be a deliberate act of vandalism, though?

The artists don't have a property right in painting a driving surface of
an open roadway in the public way. Without a property right, I don't see
how it's vandalism. The guy who set fire to the mural certainly
committed a criminal act, not vandalism of the mural but vandalism of
the roadway surface.

Burning a privately-owned flag is an act of expression. Burning a flag
attached to a government building is a criminal act.

Not all government land is public way for the purpose of speech rights,
and of course you cannot burn someone else's property as an expressive
act of free speech. That's vandalism.

I already said if the decorations erected on streetlights in advance of
a pride parade were desecrated, that's an act of vandalism and not
expressive free speech.

This mural was authorized by the governmental authorities and therefore
became part of the roadway surface. Intentionally defacing the mural is
therefore a criminal act.

You're not considering that it's the public way. You can't give one
person the privilege of free speech in the public way exclusive of
someone else's speech. If applying the paint was an expressive act of
free speech in the public way where everyone may use it, then removing
the paint was similarly speech.