The guy was preaching about fifty feet away from a DMV that people were standing outside waiting for it to open. The charges were “impeding an open business.”
Two things:
1) They weren’t impeding anyone. They might have been annoying some but they certainly weren’t impeding.
2) And the DMV wasn’t open yet which was why people were standing outside. How can you impede a business whose doors are locked? Duh!
So, in short, they weren’t impeding and it was a closed business. But let’s face it, they were arrested for preaching. Yeah, it’s that simple. Can it be annoying to have some dude yelling at you early in the morning? Sure. But do we live in a country now that arrests people because people find them annoying? If so, that’s pretty scary. And dangerous.
With this as precedent, anytime someone hears someone preaching and are annoyed by it, an arrest can be made.
Check out the vid:
April 28, 2011 at 6:42 pm
The guy reading the Bible is a jerk. And his two buddies are jerks. The rent-a-cop was polite in asking him to leave. He should have left but it seems that these jerks got what they were seeking – an arrest for which they could file suit
The last thing I want is some Bohunk bellowing Bible passages at me while I wait in line to get a license.
April 28, 2011 at 7:33 pm
@Spartacus: Maybe so. But I guess Matthew is pointing out a cultural shift that is alarming. In fact, it is more blatant in http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2011/04/obama-admin-violates-establishment.html or click here where there is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as The U.S. government condemns burning the Qur'an. Yet the U.S. government burns Bibles.
April 28, 2011 at 7:38 pm
@Matthew: You are correct. This arrest is ridiculous and illegal, and very dangerous.
@I Am Not Sparticus: You are not correct, nor are you charitable. Aside from that, you seem to miss the point, or at least you don't write about the point. The point is that it is NOT okay to arrest someone for being annoying. Otherwise you might, yourself, be in danger of arrest.
April 28, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Dear Rick. Long ago, the Constitution became a dead letter. We have no rule of law in America. America is solely about power and will. For my own self, I think of Liberty as having been slain by the despicable tyrant Lincoln and it has all been downhill for America since then with the downward momentum rapidly gathering speed towards some ineluctable catastrophic event(s).
April 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm
A public sidewalk area has been held by the Supreme Court to be a "public forum" where citizens generally have a First Amendment right to speak. The government can enforce reasonable time, place, and manner regulations on speech in those places, but an absolute prohibition of any particular type of expression is unconstitutional.
April 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm
oh.
April 28, 2011 at 7:54 pm
When I worked in downtown Chicago in the early 80's, there was a guy who stood at the corner of Washington and State and shouted Bible verses into traffic. He was there most days, around lunchtime.
We just worked our way around him. Nobody thought he should be arrested. If he'd crowded someone or grabbed a coatsleeve, or even followed someone down a street, maybe that would have been harrassment, but otherwise Live And Let Live!
That time seems to be over.
April 28, 2011 at 9:03 pm
I am not spartacus- to whom should you go?
April 28, 2011 at 9:24 pm
You all need to pay attention — he is not on the public sidewalk — the guard asks him to move to the sidewalk – he refuses. They did this just so they would get arrested.
April 28, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Michael McCormick: The DMV is a public government agency which is owned in whole and in part by every citizen. The atheist is offended by prayer and expecially the man praying. A "captive audience" means that the people were listening or they would not have been an "audience". The atheist court will have to prove that the people were an "audience" but if the people were there for licenses then they might not have been listening and could not have been an "audience". If they were annoyed they are not very tolerant. Every street corner without the Gospel being preached is a tribute to atheism,and an establishment of atheism under the penumbra of religion by the government.
April 28, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Michael,
What video did you watch. The gaurd does not ask him to go to the sidewalk. He says "Sir, you need to go someplace else." those are his first words to the preacher. He then repeats "you need to go someplace else. The police officer does not even say a word to the man other than you are under arrest. I was a cop for 11 years. I actually find the way this was handled quite disturbing. The police officer doesn't even know why he is arresting the man. He says it is for "preaching." At the very least is unprofessional. He doesn't even speak to the guard before he makes the arrest. It is clear that he hadn't spoken to him before he makes the arrest, because he is asking to speak to him after he puts the arrestee in the car. A little background, all he would have had prior to the arrest, are some call notes on a screen and some information given by the dispatcher. That is not enough to generate probable cause for an arrest. He doesn't know the statute or ordinance, he has no contact with the complainant, and he has no obvious probable cause, yet, he takes the freedom of an American citizen. Regardless of how you FEEL about the man or his preaching, the facts alone should trouble you.
April 28, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Dear Priest's wife. I do not know the meaning of what you are asking.
April 28, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Dear Mr. Garcia. He wasn't preaching. He was Bible Bellowing and while you do make some good points the jerk ought to have at least listened to the rent-a-cop but he had a ready response.
This was staged so an arrest could be made and filmed and then legal action pursued.
I do admit that it is sorta humorous in that we have citizens entrapping a cop but what the action was not was preaching.
April 29, 2011 at 12:19 am
@I am not Spartacus:
He was READING the Gospel out loud. So what's the problem?
You call this man a jerk. That is not a thoughtful term. But perhaps it takes one to know one?
April 29, 2011 at 3:37 am
Spartacus has a point: this is not the way to win friends and influence people to become followers of Jesus. Was the pastor [who, btw, seems like a decent fellow in the video intro] trying to tell the good news in a winsome way? I think not. This is the kind of "sharing" which gives Christians a bad name. Who wants to be bellowed at? He wasn't reading the Gospel as much as he was haranguing the Gospel! This is a case of wearing his religion on his coat sleeve so that all can see that he is a pious man of God. Sounds pretty Pharisaical to me. OK, so we won't all agree on preaching styles, fine, but does everyone have an absolute right to say anything at anytime anywhere? What if the preacher used a megaphone? Wouldn't that be disturbing the peace? Some think he WAS disturbing the peace by preaching [bellowing?] loudly and obnoxiously. Was he in fact on PUBLIC property? Or was he in violation of a local ordinance? This has nothing to do with WHAT he was saying, only HOW and WHEN and WHERE he was speaking. BTW, the guard does ask him to go to the sidewalk @ the 1:40 mark. And the PO arrests him not for preaching, but because he was asked to leave and did not.
April 29, 2011 at 9:46 am
There was a post some days ago complaining of the situation in the UK but this here doesn't seem better, at all.
The only one that could impede a business (open or closed) from fifty feet distance is the elastic chap from the Fantastic Four.
Here in the UK we regularly have aggressive animal rights activists not fifty, but fifteen feet from Harrod's entrances, and they don't get arrested.
Mundabor
April 29, 2011 at 12:27 pm
The Rosa Parks of Preaching. I am troubled by the way the presumably peace keeping officer grabs the man's Bible from his hands. Peace keeping officer violates the peace. The man is not preaching. The man is reading the Bible. The public places are the possession of every citizen in joint and common tenancy. You own it all, I own it all, but since atheism has removed our God-given, Creator endowed civil rights, the government owns it all. There is no ordinance on the books, that the man cannot read aloud in public. I would hope that the audience is not captive but I am afraid that we all are captive to the nonsense called prayer ban, for this is truly why the man has been arrested…but if it was the KORAN you betcha the guy would be bowed down to. In the City of New York, the muslims kneel in the streets and block traffic for miles but its OK no "captive audience" there. Maybe that fellow who came out and told the minister to "go somewhere else" will tell the muslims to take their praying "some where else". Rose Parks did in the White Supremacists, WHO will do in the Court Supremacists?
April 29, 2011 at 5:14 pm
The cop is obviously a homosexual, also. I'm sure he enjoyed making the arrest. You GO, gurl.
April 30, 2011 at 3:21 am
@I am not Sparticus: America is solely about power and will. For my own self, I think of Liberty as having been slain by the despicable tyrant Lincoln.
Lincoln said: "One person cannot own another person" and like it or not this belief alone freed the persons held as slaves. The Industrial Revolution brought America great wealth, but if it had not, the slave would have been freed because Lincoln acknowledged the Negro person. Lincoln too, had a dream, that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
April 30, 2011 at 3:30 am
Freedom is no longer free. Freedom is obliterated in the language of penumbras. The sovereign authority of God is cast aside in our courts and a "no people" rules over America