Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I'm sure you've all heard the old joke: why don't Baptists have sex standing up? Because it might lead to dancing. It appears that the police in Washington DC are as opposed to dancing as John Lithgow's character in Footloose. On Sunday, a group of about 20 libertarians went to the Jefferson Memorial to celebrate ol' Tom's birthday with a bit of dancing. The police showed up and ordered them to stop, arresting one woman for "disorderly conduct" for daring to ask the policeman what law they were breaking.
Radley Balko was there and files a report on it. Julian Sanchez does as well. There's also video of it on Youtube. Especially amusing is the police officer telling them that they have to leave because they're making noise when they all had Ipods on, so no music was being played publicly at all.
Mind you, the Jefferson Memorial is open to the public 24 hours a day. Do the police really expect someone to believe that they can stand there all they want, but if they start dancing they're doing something illegal? Quite absurd. Julian Sanchez gets it right:
Word is now that her release has been pushed back two hours because she had to be taken downtown, for some reason. So as I understand it, she's going to spend five hours getting processed by police because she was celebrating Jefferson's birthday at his open-to-the-public monument, and had the temerity to ask an officer why they had to leave. Message recieved: Never question a cop.
It is long past time that we reined in this ridiculous attitude that is entirely too common among police officers that they are gods not to be questioned. You work for us, asshole. I hope by tomorrow we can say: you used to work for us, asshole.
Comments
Unfortunately Ed we live in a police state. It's just that most of the time the police are fairly benign and genuinely have better things to do than oppress the citizens. So most of the citizens don't realize it.
As far as I know it is illegal to disobey a police officers orders and you *can* be arrested for not following them. And that effectively makes them god.
Do correct me on that point if I am incorrect.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | April 16, 2008 9:57 AM
Grew up in DC area. This is wrong. There is a good article on it with some details in the Metro Section of the Washington Post today. I guess they are saying that the rule is posted that it has to be quiet as not to disturb others. Soon DC will be a police state. Cameras are going in left and right to "help with crime".
Ed,
They quoted some Jefferson scholar saying that Jefferson would have agreed with the police because he was all about obeying the law or something like that. Anyway here is the article I thought of you when I read it. Sounds like crap to me.
Paying the Fiddler Over Celebration of Jefferson's Birth
If the HTML does not work it is on WashingtonPost.com under Metro section.
Posted by: King of Ireland | April 16, 2008 10:38 AM
To NoAstronomer: It's not illegal to disobey a police officer's orders; it's just illegal to disobey one of his lawful orders. So, it all hinges on whether it was a lawful order.
A lawful order is one authorized by law. If you are standing somewhere and a policeman tells you to make pig noises, that is not a lawful order and you do not have to obey. Similarly, I would think that being ordered to leave an area in which you have a perfect right to be there, and are not causing any sort of disturbance would also not be a lawful order.
By the way, she was charged with "Interfering with Agency Functions," Title 36, Section 2.32. You can see it at this link. The only relevant part seems to be (a)(2):
As far as I can see none of those really applies. It wasn't a "law enforcement action" until he actually arrested her, so he can't arrest her for that. There was nothing "necessary to maintain order and public safety", since neither were threatened.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out (I hear that Alan Gura, who just did the DC 2nd Amendment case, has volunteered to represent her--now that will get really interesting!).
Posted by: Ahcuah | April 16, 2008 10:38 AM
A couple years back we were planning our national sales meeting and had arranged a nice awards dinner followed by dancing. At the last minute the CEO put the kibosh on the dancing. We asked why and were told, "Because it leads to other things." So, we replaced the dancing with an open bar, which, to our great amusement, got a thumbs up.
Free flowing liquor turned out to lead to quite a few other things. I can only imagine the debauchery that would have ensued had dancing been permitted. ;-)
I now return you to your regularly scheduled police state outrage already in progress.
Posted by: Abby Normal | April 16, 2008 11:03 AM
In most jurisdictions, the police have "Disorderly Conduct" to fall back on. I once got an officer to admit (over beer) that Disorderly Conduct is their "I don't like you or what you are doing, so I will arrest you for no other reason."
Usually these charges are only municipal violations, akin to a traffic ticket, and often are dropped long before they actually reach a court. That does not help the people who are arrested and held semi-illegally.
Posted by: LanceR | April 16, 2008 11:30 AM
Don't they know that is what the old grain mill on the other side of the Potomac is for?
Posted by: Rev. AJB | April 16, 2008 11:57 AM
They should have told the police officers they were praying. In rhythm.
Seriously, if prayer circles are not considered disruptive (and they shouldn't be) -- what's the difference?
Posted by: Sastra | April 16, 2008 2:31 PM
Sastra:
"They should have told the police officers they were praying"
Spitshot! :D
Posted by: Gingerbaker | April 16, 2008 3:57 PM
I also think Tom would have agreed with founding father Ben Franklin when he said: "Those who sacrifice freedom for security will lose both and deserve neither."
I think "security" in this case, however, is a term the police used both loosely and inaccurately..
Posted by: Matt Messatzzia | April 16, 2008 10:57 PM
Those cops are assholes but that's to be expected... they're Americans.
Not a day goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars that I live in Canada rather than the US of Assholes.
9/11? I was ROFLMAO when I heard about that one. What goes around comes around. It was long overdue and I would love to see it happen again.
Posted by: bob | April 16, 2008 11:03 PM
Thomas Jefferson reminds us that; "Ours is not a system based upon trust, but one of suspicion..!"
Americans have forgotten it is their responsibility to watch closely those with power over them and never give them blind trust as power of corrupting and has always been that is human nature itself..
This also speaks to our Founding Fathers specific design of a system of checks and balances..!
The Federalist Society that Tory cabal of liars and usurpers seek to destroy this as we have seen with The Unitary Scumbaggery Doctrine..!
These Tory pernicious elitist sycophants such as Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Clarance Thomas, Kennedy of what is now the Federalist Society Court and no longer The Supreme Court along with those such as David Addington, John Yoo, Karl Rove, Mukasey et al, are a greater threat to our Republic than al-Qaeda could ever be..
Simple as that..
Posted by: TJ Colatrella | April 16, 2008 11:09 PM
You laugh at the deaths of three thousand people... and we're the assholes?
Posted by: Skemono | April 17, 2008 12:00 AM
bob:
I am a Canadian. Please stop disgracing my country.
Posted by: Jib Halyard | April 17, 2008 3:13 AM
Crazies kill thread...
Posted by: Matthew | April 17, 2008 5:17 AM
I'm with Jib all the way on this one, bob. Please leave our country immediately, and move to a region more in line with your views, such as ancient Assyria.
Posted by: CaptainMike | April 18, 2008 2:53 PM