November 02, 2011 03:31 AM UTC

Another Court Sides with Occupiers

• 0 Comments
• by: AndrewBateman

I was following up on the diary that I posted a couple days ago about Occupy Nashville and found that the group has won another major victory there.

To refresh your memory (or for those who didn’t read the first diary), protesters in Nashville were arrested two nights in a row for violating the city’s curfew law. And both times, the local Judge dismissed their charges and ordered their release saying there was “no legal basis” for the arrests.

Yesterday, a Federal Judge ordered the police to stop arresting protesters, regardless of the time of day.

The Washington Post Reports:

On Monday morning, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Nashville protesters, claiming a curfew put in place violates the right to free speech. Monday afternoon, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order requiring police to stop arresting protesters, the Tennessean reports.

This is not, however, the most interesting point to the story…  

Also on that page is a video taken by newspaper journalist Jonathan Meador, who was arrested along with the protesters.

In the video, police appear to approach the chanting crowd, while protesters yell at them “We love you!” Meador can be heard repeating, “I’m a member of the media.” The visuals are obscured, but a second voice can be heard saying, “When you get him up there charge him with resisting arrest.” The same voice can be heard telling Meador that he is putting Meador’s camera in his pocket.

This exchange, caught on tape, raises questions that have implications across the nation, including here in Colorado.

How many of the people arrested were actually charged with the “crime” that led to their arrest? And how many more were charged with something else, like Resisting Arrest, Assault, or Disturbing the Peace, in order to raise their bail and avoid pesky first amendment issues?

I have personally witnessed dozens of protesters being arrested in Denver. I was even struck by police officers while trying to document one of the more forceful arrests. Most were doing nothing more than sitting on a sidewalk. Yet, many were charged with resisting.

Another COPolster, Wade Norris, has documented similar inconsistencies.

I think that, as more and more film comes out, we are going to find that police (or rather, the people giving them orders) all over the country have been engaged in a coordinated, strategic, and largely unconstitutional effort to end a peaceful protest. Not to restrict or modify it, but to end it.

But Occupiers simply have to hold out a while longer. Two Federal Judges have now ordered cities (Nashville and Cleveland) to leave protesters alone. And more will likely be added to the list before long. After that comes actual rulings that will determine whether these curfews meet the judicial standard of “reasonable restriction of time, place, and manner” as it relates to free speech.

The City of Denver and the State of Colorado should get ahead of the curve and stop now, before they have to be ordered back by a judge. The civil rights cost (as well as the monetary cost to the city and state) of continuing the police action against these peaceful protests is simply too great.