That is the basic definition of a "protest": to prod the authorities. It is a basic right in any free society.
> That said, I don't know if he was actually breaking any laws.
Which is the crux of the matter. The cops should just STFU and move along.
NO. Totally false.
Carrying a gun, and trying to arbitrary stop cops from doing their jobs is not 'protest' - by any stretch.
In fact, I'd suggest that he could be charged with a small crime in many reasonable countries. For example, in many places, it's not legal to alert others of a speed trap at a certain spot. (Radio programs have been stopped from doing this).
"It is a basic right in any free society."
Possibly legal, but completely inappropriate the point that I, and most regular people will have little sympathy for this guy if he ends up having to go to court only to get the charges thrown out (though I don't think he should be charged with anything).
So many people fail to grasp the difference between the law, and reasonable behaviour. Running around with guns hassling cops is not reasonable by any stretch - and people shouldn't do it.
If he was holding a sign, in front of the Police building, without weapons, trying to call attention to a specific issue that would be fine. But this guy is just trying to cause problems, and stop police from doing their very important jobs.
There are a lot of ways to constructively protest without carrying weapons and prodding cops.
Except that's not what happened. His friend was holding up a sign that said there was a checkpoint ahead, and to keep silent. He was filming the police from the side of the road. Neither of those is interfering in any way with police activities (and are protected speech). He was carrying a non-concealed gun, for which he had a permit, and which is not illegal. And we 100% know this was legal, as all of the charges were dropped by the prosecutor.
The police aren't 'Appropriate Enforcement', or 'Unlaw Enforcement'. They are Law Enforcement. The enforce the law, and can do so with lethal force. The law says that it's perfectly OK to stand on the side of the road, holding signs warning people of upcoming checkpoints, and recording police while they enforce a checkpoint.
You keep bringing up the gun. He was legally allowed to carry a gun. Connecticut is an "open carry" state.
The difference is that our justice system should only be concerned with enforcing the law. Even if one concedes (I don't) that his behavior was "unreasonable", that's not sufficient for the police to involve themselves.
How do you reconcile this quote?
“Let’s give him something,” one trooper declared. Another suggested, “we can hit him with creating a public disturbance.” “Gotta cover our ass,” remarked a third.
"And then we claim that, um, in backup, we had multiple people, um, they didn't want to stay and give us a statement, so we took our own course of action"
> there's no indication that anyone made up any charges, the cops were deciding what to charge him with given the situation. That's what cops do every day.
Which is a crime. If the police don't believe you've broken a law before they arrest you, they're doing it wrong. They should never need to discuss it at this point.
> That said, I don't know if he was actually breaking any laws.
Right, and you know from this article that the police were breaking the law. They assaulted him and tried to break his camera, even if you don't believe the false-arrest aspect. But you're still trying desperately to make it look like the victims fault.
> The line between legal/legal and appropriate/inappropriate is really thin.
Not really, it's always been massively illegal and massively inappropriate to frame someone and knowingly file false police reports.
I take it you missed the part in the video where they said they would say that there were witnesses who didn't want to leave their names/information.
Somehow this kind of thing never happens when it's open carrying NRA members outside abortion clinics.
The statement 'the charges were not based in fact' - is a statement by the ACLU, and there's no reason to believe that they are objective about the situation, we don't know what happened.
Maybe they were too aggressive in their laying of charges, if so, hopefully the will be thrown out and authorities will have a closer look, sadly, I doubt anything will come of it.
Also - the 'protestor' was carrying a weapon and acting directly against state authorities. If someone in my neighbourhood had a gun, was standing on the street trying to prod police officers, I would definitely want the police to be checking him out. That said, I don't know if he was actually breaking any laws.
The line between legal/legal and appropriate/inappropriate is really thin. Also, why everyone needs to be carrying guns all the time is beyond me.