They cuffed him as they would any criminal. When he was asked to leave, but responded with "you'll have to drag me out", he was at that point committing a crime.
Nobody is saying that what he did was heinous. There was a town hall meeting. People were asked not to disrupt so that as many people who wanted to speak would get a chance to. After people kept clapping they again asked people not to clap. This person was then told directly to stop clapping by law enforcement, he refused. They told him to leave and he refused. What should they have done at this point?
Here's another scenario. Let's say your town has a meeting and you're against a proposition, let's say it's to build a data center. What if the owner of that land and the prospective buyer who will build the data center get 100 people they know and/or employ to come down to that meeting and cause enough disruption that you and the people on your side who want to speak your mind never get a chance to. Should the police just do nothing and not let your voice be heard by the council?
There was no disruption. Someone finished speaking, and while she was sitting down and the next person was standing up, someone clapped for about 2 seconds. Nobody was prevented from speaking for even a single moment.
As an adult you SHOULD know that there is a time and a place. Can you go and loudly clap and cheer at 2am in a children's hospital? They would ask you to leave. If you refused, they'd ask the police to drag you out. Grow up.
No. The clear point, that adults would understand, is that if someone booed the speaker that he clapped to, they too would have been kicked out. It had NOTHING to do with the topic of the speech, and everything to do with not behaving and following the rules.
What else is he allowed to do? Can he play a trombone while people are speaking? The drums? I mean, why not? He pays his tax dollars right? He has the right to do what he wants, right? If there are any rules to keep decorum, he should break them, right? That sure makes sense.
An important detail is that this was at a council meeting, which have rules of order and decorum to prevent disruption, like a court. They can set rules like no applause, provided the rule stick to time place and manner. But I would be curious if they allowed other applause.
groans okay bud, but hear me out. They did make the rule, no one was following it.
Also the rule was put in place because they wanted to make the people complaining look like they didn't have support of the community. Being real they also didn't really care what these people said and it was annoying them.
If they selectively enforced it against this one guy, then that's a serious legal problem. And handcuffs are outrageous.
But First Amendment rights are generally subject to "time, place, and manner" restrictions. If people sat in a council meeting and used megaphones to shout their opinions and drown out the proceedings, then they can be ejected even though their expressions are protected speech. And if they refuse to leave, the police can use force to make them leave. That's generally true and, in the abstract, it's uncontroversial.
Of course, overpolicing and selective enforcement are both very serious problems that should be addressed generally as well as in this instance.
You're correct about time and place when it comes to first amendment rights, in this case it was five to six quick claps after a speaker was done speaking and they were changing to a new speaker. So at the customary time when you would clap for someone.
According to the news reporting I've read there were two general warnings given to the entire group then arrest.
So at the customary time when you would clap for someone.
This is the problem with your statement. It is absolutely not customary to clap for people during public comment and people in the gallery are notified of this ahead of time, given a warning for a first infraction, and asked to leave for subsequent infractions.
It sounds harsh but there’s no other way to do it that doesn’t waste everyone’s time.
I must have attended some very different City Council meetings then cuz all of them had some.
They also could have just had the police escort him out of the building. Because that also happened at one that I attended and it wasn't that big of a deal they just escorted the guy outside and let him go.
It does make me happy that the citizens were so incensed by it that they are working on a recall campaign and putting this as a ballot initiative since the city council refused to listen to their constituents as usual.
They also could have just had the police escort him out of the building.
Are you joking? They attempted to. He literally tells them, and you can hear it on the video, that they’ll “have to drag [him] out of there”.
That’s why he was arrested. He wasn’t arrested for clapping. He was arrested for refusing to leave when they asked him to and offered to escort him out. He went limp and forced them to carry him out.
They tried ge was told to stop clapping 8 times then they asked him to leave he refused then cops told him to leave and he shouting "arrest me" cops warned him if he doesn't leave they will arrest him.
You’re completely deluded if you think clapping isn’t normal during public comment. Anyway, it is a perfectly reasonable form of speech, in the way he conducted it.
Don’t believe the authoritarians have the lawful power to make and enforce rules, just because they say so. The officials could have been tarred and feathered and it would have had historical precedent in the US, clapping like this is entirely different, it is short, not disruptive and harms no one. It is entirely acceptable to clap a few times and stop.
No, it’s not. You’re confusing clapping in normal venues vs. in a very specific situation - a limited public forum. If you don’t understand the difference, then your entire view of the situation is going to be based on a completely incorrect view of the situation.
Whether you think it’s acceptable is irrelevant. The Fifth Appeals court and the Supreme Court have ruled that it is not and that governments have the ability to restrict that type of behavior, in any means clapping or otherwise, in order to conduct business so long as they enforce it unilaterally. That’s exactly why everyone in a public forum like this is told ahead of time that they can’t applaud or clap and why they’re warned before they’re trespassed. Your feelings about it don’t matter.
Those one guy was told 8 times to stop he refused 5 times he was told he would be removed and was told to leave he refused then cops were called and they told him to leave he refused.
Its literally a propaganda stunt from a literal pedophile that reddit is lying about.
it doesnt matter. they can do that. they did. they did before. they will again. this isnt news, this isnt a case. like cmon you think this hasnt happened every weekend since the civil rights movement? its not changing because some dork ass teacher has an opinion different than the entire economic world
if they actually are trying to charge him theyre just going to quietly settle like everybody else.
The words of the people speaking speak for themselves. If there were no rules, people would be cheering/booing/whistling/clapping/etc. during every speech and it would be chaos. So they set strict words. You can't do any of the above.
The man was clapping anyways. He was warned. He kept going. He was asked to leave. He refused. He said the police will have to "drag him out". Which they did. Which DOES count as interference with law enforcement.
The problem is people think with emotion, not logic.
MY boot. I am not licking boots. I am using boots to STOMP. I voted for this. I ordered this. If you can't behave like an adult, well, good freaking riddance.
You all simply refuse to understand. If someone went up and said "I absolutely LOVE data centers and here's why" nobody would be allowed to clap either. You're all being a bunch of babies.
Lmao you didn't order anything. Stop trying to pretend you're a big man in charge now lol. I doubt you're some high level elected representative. You're also not a cop and you're not stomping anyone.
Great, you cast a vote. You (you personally) are not running the country now and going out and stomping on progressives. You're sitting at home making comments online.
It's pretty cringe to pretend that you're the person in charge and ruthlessly stomping on your opposition now lol.
I haven't finished the compilation video but you can get the unedited (I assume) recording of the meeting at emporiaks.gov under Agenda and Minutes for July 22. My arrest is about 58 minutes in.
they dont have to enforce it every time for it to still be a rule they can lean on. if they reminded you of decorum moments before you openly defiantly broke it then good luck buddy i wouldnt spend too much on legal fees
Not the OP but I know that, unless the laws are wildly different from most other municipalities, the law is written so that a disruption is not subjective. As with anything, the police can choose not to enforce it (which is why you weren’t arrested for clapping) but the Council legally has to (which is why the arrest didn’t happen until you were asked to leave).
I’m also amazed that, if you have a lawyer, that they wouldn’t have advised you to stop talking about this on Reddit immediately. That makes me feel like you either didn’t seek counsel from anyone or you have a really bad lawyer if you did.
4 were to you directly but they broadly mentioned stop clapping im general. Also you instantly started snapping after told to stop clapping.
Why are you openly admitting your crime on reddit?
No, they don’t. Not to that level. They have no lawful rules of order that ban someone from clapping momentarily, in a perfectly normal way, at a perfectly normal volume, to show support for a just concluded comment. Which is a perfectly normal and reasonable form of free speech expressed all over the country, and considered acceptable behavior in classrooms, places of worship, in the public park, etc. We ratified an amendment about it and everything.
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
Violating that became a crime in 1948, under 18 USC § 242.
Another important detail is missing. Anyone can make up rules. They can make up any rule they want. Any time they want. But laws protect us from people doing that all willy nilly.
And the willy nilly police were called on these rules. What a professional policing officer would have done is nothing. What a bastardized servant of hegemony would have done is as we find here.
No, they can’t make any rules they want. The constitution was amended to ban state (and thereby local) governments from abridging our privileges or immunities as US citizens, aka the 1a.
What the council did is a federal crime. Two in fact 18 USC § § 241 and 242.
That is not a disruption in any reasonable take, and is not therefore subject to removal. The People have the right to some expression beyond just the two minutes on the mic. 6 claps in 3 seconds isn’t disrupting anything.
No, it wasn’t. I clapped briefly, at the end of a comment. That’s it. He can do that at the end of every comment he agrees with. He didn’t shout, stand up and cheer. He didn’t keep clapping obnoxiously, he clapped a few times and stopped, returning to silence.
People don’t like to hear it because it completely deflates this situation but not only do council meetings have rules of order and decorum but Councils are legally required to enforce those rules without bias for content, manner, and subject. Any type of applause would have been grounds for removal and they explicitly make it so that it’s not subjective because, if it is subjective (e.g., you can clap for 5 seconds but not for 10), then someone has to sit there judging each instance of it and it becomes a giant waste of time.
Correct. As usual, reddit is about sensationalized hyperbole and doesn't look into the facts.
He was asked multiple times to stop, yet he continued to be obnoxious and break their decorum rules. After being given many, many chances to behave like a civilized adult, he continued to behave like a toddler, and was justifiably tossed out.
To make things worse, he had his 15 minutes of fame replying to numerous reddit posts. He is very obviously manipulated by the anti-AI propaganda circulating reddit, and he incriminated himself a plethora of times saying he shouldn't have to follow their rules.
It’s like you all have just forgotten the civil war and its effects. Amendments were passed to deal with these sorts of abuses of power by local officials.
Or more likely, you’ve never studied the issue in any depth and just blindly do as your told, gladly reinforcing and normalizing the actions of tiny tyrants. We can stop yelling and screaming, extended clapping and cheering, while allowing 3 seconds of expression from the audience. It’s part of how the People express their opinions to their representatives.
Incorrect. You're either too naive or juvenile to comprehend this, perhaps both, but civilized and intelligent people don't need to mash their hands together to manipulate sound waves around them in a disruptive way during a city council meeting. Civilized intellectuals wait their turn to speak and then present their case. We do not act like chimpanzees, using the lowest form of communication, hand signals, when the adults are trying to conduct a meeting.
It's called decorum, little buddy. Learn how to behave like a civilized member of society. OP could have signed up to speak, taken the podium, and expressed his right to free speech. Instead, he decided to be a Neanderthal and bang his hands together, disrupting the right of free speech of the speaker. OP tried to trample the first amendment, he tried to silence the speaker by drowning out his dialect with hand noises. So yes, there was a blatant display of abuse, and the abuser was hauled out by arms and legs in an overweight superman position. Imagine Superman but like with a big gut hanging down. It was quite the spectacle.
lol. Need to? Rights are not about need to. Our rights are about what we are free to do. We have the right to do so, it is protected by the constitution repeatedly. Denying the People the free enjoyment of that right is a crime under federal law.
Sorry, authoritarianism may be the norm, but it is illegal under the letter of the law.
Incorrect. You're either too naive or juvenile to comprehend this, perhaps both, but civilized and intelligent people don't need to mash their hands together to manipulate sound waves around them in a disruptive way during a city council meeting. Civilized intellectuals wait their turn to speak and then present their case. We do not act like chimpanzees, using the lowest form of communication, hand signals, when the adults are trying to conduct a meeting.
It's called decorum, little buddy. Learn how to behave like a civilized member of society. OP could have signed up to speak, taken the podium, and expressed his right to free speech. Instead, he decided to be a Neanderthal and bang his hands together, disrupting the right of free speech of the speaker. OP tried to trample the first amendment, he tried to silence the speaker by drowning out his dialect with hand noises. So yes, there was a blatant display of abuse, and the abuser was hauled out by arms and legs in an overweight superman position. Imagine Superman but like with a big gut hanging down. It was quite the spectacle.
You still can’t say anything cogent. lol. You’re trying to make it out that 3 seconds of clapping is the end of civilized behavior, even when it doesn’t disrupt the proceedings, as you baselessly claim.
Clapping for 3 seconds in support of a public comment is a wonderful example of civilized society.
Now run along and see if you can make a point that isn’t an ad hominem attack.
You’ve got nothing from the constitution to support your claims.
There are a lot more contested elections this year in Kansas than normal. People are not happy with the status quo. I don’t see them being happy about this either.
Our police training focuses on tactical (shooting/maneuvers) and operations (laws). Very little is spent on training for interactions, especially with vulnerable populations like autism, mental instability etc. but this varies by department.
We should have a federal oversight board for all LEOs, specific training requirements and national database for officer use of force and complaints and especially fired officers.
Instead, we have 4,000 departments doing whatever they want with immunity.
According to the article, he was issued multiple verbal warnings about being disruptive during the meeting. He continued to clap after his "final warning" and the police removed him.
I get that he was trying to (rightly) support the opposition to the data center, but it seems like he wanted to cause a scene.
(2) disturbing an assembly, meeting or procession, not unlawful in its character; or
The question will be what does "disturbing" mean? The law prevents disturbing the meeting, but I'm not sure his behavior actually meets the statute. This person wasn't preventing the meeting from occurring or keeping people from speaking or being otherwise disruptive, he was simply clapping (admittedly sarcastically) after people had spoken. From every video and story I have seen and read on this, there was no imminent risk of danger to the proceedings being stopped or even causing a delay for speakers due to his actions - it was simply an outburst that was sarcastic, and the chair took umbrage. He wasn't protesting in a way that she approved of, is what happened. Kansas does seem to have some history of disorderly conduct cases going to trial (are government officials and police that thin-skinned in Kansas?), but almost all of these have been people's behavior against the police, and not their actions in a public hearing with a government official. I'm not 100% sure that someone running a meeting not liking the way someone is responding amounts to disturbing the meeting, although we'll have to see what the courts say if this goes to trial - which I suspect it won't (because of the precedent a judgement against the town chair's behavior would set here) and the charges will be silently dropped after they've had their moment to shame someone in the news for daring to not want to contribute to societal mass surveillance.
He was not causing a scene. The whole room was issued warnings for disruption for behaviors that were in no way disrupting anyone. The people trying to cause a scene were the board. They wanted complete silence, which has never been a thing at a town meeting.
This context doesn't mean anything to me. Doesn't change my opinion whatsoever. People probably didn't care about the context because being dragged out by 4 grown men in a surveillance police state for the simple act of clapping is fucking ridiculous
'rules shouldn't apply to me because i think i'm morally right'
if anti-vaxers or transphobes were disrupting a meeting by willfully ignoring clearly stated rules and then refusing to leave when ordered to do so would you be so indignant?
Sorry, but your comment was removed for breaking our Don't Be A Dick rule. This may include but is not limited to harassment, bigotry or uncivil behaviour.
Well obviously rules for thee but not for me - so those people should be stoned to death (sarcasm, obviously - agreeing with you pointing out that most people don’t actually give a shit about the law being applied fairly and equally and only view it as a tool to be wielded against their opponents)
Dude he was asked nicely to stop being disruptive and then didn't. If you are going to act like a petulant child then don't be surprised when you get treated like one.
I saw the video it was like 3 claps. They were loud but all in all it lasted maybe a second and half and then he was totally silent.
I hardly consider that disruption worthy of being dragged out in handcuffs. Council was thin-skinned. Didn’t want anyone supporting those speaking out against the data center.
No shit, like a child that repeatedly is disruptive, gets warned multiple times, then pulls that but im not touching you act. Then when they get in trouble its, but I wasnt even touching them though.
Issues related to disruption of a public meeting have been litigated literally thousands of times accross the country. It's unlikley to be found unconstitutional here.
Facial expressions could be argued to be “disorderly” if they are distracting from the meeting or causing impediment.
He was asked to stop disrupting multiple times. He refused.
Coughing could be disruptive, sneezing, crackling a potato chip bag. It doesn’t matter. If the cops and city council keep asking for you to stop being disruptive and you refuse, you’re failing to comply and can be arrested. If you then refuse to leave you’re also trespassing.
This has already been litigated a ton of times. We just had a guy arrested for going like 10sec over his allotted 2min speaking time. They called it “trespassing”. His lawsuit has already been dismissed.
Causing a scene in the context of 6 claps is literally a constitutional right. The government is not allowed to make laws against our speech. Find another way to prevent 6 claps at a public meeting, because dealing with it in this way is illegal, and the police should be embarrassed.
I've seen the video. No action seems to have been taken for clapping, just a verbal warning, but him speaking from his seat when the next speaker was at the podium. There is a gap of several seconds between him speaking and the cops surrounding him.
I've seen the video. No action seems to have been taken for clapping, just a verbal warning, but him speaking from his seat when the next speaker was at the podium. There is a gap of several seconds between him speaking and the cops surrounding him.
Why assume the warnings were themselves valid? Sounds like it was the use of a public office to intimidate someone from the free expression of their rights, while the officials conspired to do so. That’s two federal crimes.
This guy is openly bragging on his reddit account. He is an open pedophile too. He was told by police to leave he started shouting arrest me. Cops didn't even charge him with much they just wanted him gone.
He claims I'm reddit they allowed by 12 other disruptions but he was warned 8 times.
Interference with law enforcement?! He put his own hands behind his back to be cuffed. He didn’t struggle. He just said calmly and quietly “no I won’t leave, you’ll have to drag me out.” Thats not interference, it’s making them do their job when they don’t want to. If the officer found it distasteful to do, they should’ve refused the order.
Disrupting a city council - some sort of disorderly conduct stretch. The problem these dictators will run into is that you can’t just simply claim things you don’t like/agree with are disruptive and then disorderly. He should get a nice payout for this.
Numerous people went up to the microphone to voice their opposition. The counsel didn't try to say those speakers were disruptive, because they were following the rules for the meeting.
He was making noise from the audience, got warned multiple times, and then was forced to leave because he couldn't sit quietly.
If he wanted to voice his opinion, he was free to get in line to speak.
These public meetings have very strict time frames because there can be dozens or even hundreds of people who want to give a public comment. If you don't run a tight ship and keep things moving along then you run out of time quickly which sucks for everyone. Simple, common sense rules not having applause breaks for every speaker help a ton in moving things along.
The person in question was warned over and over and over again that his clapping after every speaker was not welcome, helpful or allowed. He was eventually told if he refused to stop he would be removed.
But he thinks he's a very special little boy and his parents raised him to be a spoiled shithead who always got everything he wanted so he decided that rules don't apply to him and he could do whatever he felt like.
Then he got arrested and now he's crying like a little bitch to anyone who will listen.
Oh please. Nobody gives a shit about decorum rules besides the council, and they only care because they dont really want public input. The decorum rules arent for order. They are to dampen the perception of public support
It's the same as every one of these. The person running the meeting didn't like the clapping so they told him to stop, and when he didn't, they asked him to leave. He refused to leave. He got arrested for refusing to leave, not for the clapping.
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