Court: Chicago Cops Cannot Arrest People For Being Annoying
It should go without saying that cops can’t arrest people for being annoying, but since there is video of cops arresting and abusing people for being sassy,
the courts had to step in and clarify a Chicago ordinance which allowed cops to arrest protesters for being an “annoyance.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that cops cannot arrest people for being a nuisance. (Remember the woman in L.A. who was bodyslammed by cops after they pulled her over for talking on her cell phone? It doesn’t take much to trigger some of the boys in blue.)
Business Insider reports:
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled police can disperse protests when three or more people nearby could cause “substantial harm” to bystanders but cannot break up a demonstration if people nearby are simply causing “serious inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm.”
The court decided the ordinance was too vague and agreed with a man who was arrested in 2008 while protesting the Iraq War, according to Law Blog.
“The ordinance lacks the necessary specificity and tailoring to pass constitutional muster, and we must conclude that the ordinance substantially impacts speech,” wrote Judge Joel Flaum.
This is a win for civil liberties since the vagueness of the original law revoked the right to freely protest in Chicago. It’s amazing to think that we live in a country where money is considered speech, allowing billionaires to buy off elections with impunity, but free speech and protest is restricted. This ruling comes just in time for the teacher’s union protests in Chicago.
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That was a good ruling from the Court. Can we get it to apply to all the police around the country who are arresting people for very silly, petty things…like standing in their yard and staring at the cops…or filming cops beating up on a Black teenager. Or how about the awful mess that some cops have done to Occupy Wall St. protestors…many of whom were just standing there. I have often wondered who is making profits from all these silly arrests.
I was thinking the same thing.