Chaos and Hate at Ann Coulter Speech, student arrested

[KrazyHorse]

Thinking about this, I'm actually pleasantly surprised I've never been arrested.

I think I maintain a certain level of awareness of self-preservation even while ridiculously drunk

Like I piss outside, but I first check to see if there are any cops around.

The one time that broke down was when my friends and I stole the 2 foot by 10 foot wooden front entrance sign to Centennial College in Scarborough, Ontario (from a height of approximately 15 feet above the ground) and at one point carried it across a major intersection at which a police car was stopped. We passed within 5 feet of their car, but they didn't do anything. Not to mention I was very intoxicated, and was only 18 (the drinking age in Ontario is 19).

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by Ted Striker




Yeah

I was just being ironic

I am the Tuberski Family Designated Driver

come this weekend ted ur gonna be needed cause i plan on getting very intoxicated.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

but i wont do it on a school campus and make obscene jestures at an ignorant ding dong like this woman to be thrown in jail

[ajbera]

Here's Eugene Volokh re the incident:

[Eugene Volokh, May 4, 2005 at 3:35pm] 4 Trackbacks / Possibly More Trackbacks

Arrested for Asking a Vulgar Question: Vince Finaldi points me to the affidavit justifying the arrest of a student for asking a rude question at an Ann Coulter speech. If the facts in the affidavit are accurate, then it looks like the student has an excellent First Amendment defense.

The student is not being prosecuted for heckling, in the sense of shouting things while the speaker was speaking; content-neutral heckling bans, I think, would be quite constitutional if properly drafted, but that isn't involved here. Rather, he's being prosecuted for asking "You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage . . . . How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but **** his wife up the ass?," and then going back to his seat while "making a repeated motion with his right arm and hand, which was cupped in a circular shape, towards his crotch area simulating masturbation." This, the affidavit says, was "disorderly conduct" under Texas law, which is to say "abusive, profane, and vulgar language and obscene gesture," and it's unprotected because it supposedly "incited an imminent breach of the peace of the peace within the crowd," by provoking some of the audience to scream, shout, and boo, and by leading "a few" of Coulter's supporters to "st[an]d up as if to chase down" the questioner.

But such speech, even if vulgar, is constitutionally protected unless it contains "personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction." See Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971); Duran v. Furr's Supermarkets, Inc., 921 S.W.2d 778 (Tex. App. 1996).

Simply getting the crowd riled up doesn't make the speech unprotected. Simply saying offensive things to Coulter doesn't make the speech unprotected. If the student had personally called her some epithet, then the matter might have been different. But just asking a rude question that includes a profanity (but not one used to describe Coulter) is not unprotected, and neither is making sexually suggestive gestures (again, when they didn't seem to be personal insults of Coulter).

I should stress that the student's speech was rude. What I take to be the substantive question (what cultural conservatives who support morals legislation think about the fact that many upstanding married people engage in "sodomy," chiefly oral sex but sometimes also anal sex) is quite legitimate, but there's no reason to throw in profanity or sexual gestures. Also, if the person had been speaking out of turn (i.e., heckling) and was prosecuted for that, the matter would be very different. But based on what I see in the affidavit, any arrest and prosecution of this student would be unconstitutional.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_01-2005_05_07.shtml#1115235309

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Unless we were actually there, shouldn't we accept the police report on events

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Making a grab at your crotch will not get you arrested.

Baseball might be a tad short of players if it did.


Of course religious groups can have placards that have a slash through the word 'fags' or 'God hates fags' in the great land of the free, but making a sexual gesture ?


Good heavens, the sky will fall.


Whatever next ? Links to 19th Century paintings of vaginas ?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
Im sorry the guy in question said himself he was a jackass. To act like this in public is unacceptable.

It may be unacceptable, but it's not illegal.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
being a student shouldnt protect him from acting like a fool. Im sure if u try and get away with grabbing ur gentials at a movie theater that would not be acceptable

i'm pretty sure one would not be arrested in greece in either occasion....

greece rules

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MarkG
greece rules

Except when they ban video games.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
This thread is remarkable.

It seems to me, apolyton considers pelvic thrusts to be 'public expression,' moreso than the contents of Ms. Coulter's speech.

...

The purpose of the gesture, served not to advance the debate, but to disrupt, to dismiss rather than discuss.

Consistent with most of the left, they have no arguments, just disdain. But to that extent, he expressed his. The question here is whether what he did was privileged or a crime.

[Ned]

Well, I tend to fall on the side of the line that the obsenities were protected speech. However, assume it was, what were the police supposed to do about the riot that would have ensued had they not made the arrest?

[MrFun]

You foresaw the future and foretold that a riot would have ensued.




Dude, your powers are impressive.

[Ned]

Originally posted by MrFun
You foresaw the future and foretold that a riot would have ensued.




Dude, your powers are impressive.

Mr. Fun, I assume you read the police report. That is what it said was about to happen. But, as Che said, police always lie, right?

[Ramo]

Regardless, it is more than clear that he was there with a group of very wild and obscene protesters who deliberately were trying to obstruct Coulter's speech in any way they could besides physically attacking her.

The police report doesn't say that at all. You're making **** up. Again.

When the speaker became so outrageous as to cause Coulter supporters in the front to conduct their counter-riot and move to physically restrained the obscene protester, the police moved in and made the arrest.

What the police report does say is that a few of Coulter's fan decided to stand up (and the officer assumed that they were going to chase down Raj and stop him). Given that he was leaving at the time that the officers decided to arrest him, there's absolutely no reason why a riot would've occured. It might've been justifiable to force him to leave (not that that was necessary), but why arrest him? Furthermore, there's absolutely no reason to charge him with a misdimeanor. It's idiotic. It's absurdly authoritarian.

Consistent with most of the left, they have no arguments, just disdain. But to that extent, he expressed his.

Consistent with the right, y'all hate freedom.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Ya know I wonder if this behavior would still acceptable and he still be a hero if it was you or your S.O he was perfroming for.