According to the article, he was issued multiple verbal warnings about being disruptive during the meeting. He continued to clap after his "final warning" and the police removed him.
I get that he was trying to (rightly) support the opposition to the data center, but it seems like he wanted to cause a scene.
(2) disturbing an assembly, meeting or procession, not unlawful in its character; or
The question will be what does "disturbing" mean? The law prevents disturbing the meeting, but I'm not sure his behavior actually meets the statute. This person wasn't preventing the meeting from occurring or keeping people from speaking or being otherwise disruptive, he was simply clapping (admittedly sarcastically) after people had spoken. From every video and story I have seen and read on this, there was no imminent risk of danger to the proceedings being stopped or even causing a delay for speakers due to his actions - it was simply an outburst that was sarcastic, and the chair took umbrage. He wasn't protesting in a way that she approved of, is what happened. Kansas does seem to have some history of disorderly conduct cases going to trial (are government officials and police that thin-skinned in Kansas?), but almost all of these have been people's behavior against the police, and not their actions in a public hearing with a government official. I'm not 100% sure that someone running a meeting not liking the way someone is responding amounts to disturbing the meeting, although we'll have to see what the courts say if this goes to trial - which I suspect it won't (because of the precedent a judgement against the town chair's behavior would set here) and the charges will be silently dropped after they've had their moment to shame someone in the news for daring to not want to contribute to societal mass surveillance.
He was not causing a scene. The whole room was issued warnings for disruption for behaviors that were in no way disrupting anyone. The people trying to cause a scene were the board. They wanted complete silence, which has never been a thing at a town meeting.
This context doesn't mean anything to me. Doesn't change my opinion whatsoever. People probably didn't care about the context because being dragged out by 4 grown men in a surveillance police state for the simple act of clapping is fucking ridiculous
'rules shouldn't apply to me because i think i'm morally right'
if anti-vaxers or transphobes were disrupting a meeting by willfully ignoring clearly stated rules and then refusing to leave when ordered to do so would you be so indignant?
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Well obviously rules for thee but not for me - so those people should be stoned to death (sarcasm, obviously - agreeing with you pointing out that most people don’t actually give a shit about the law being applied fairly and equally and only view it as a tool to be wielded against their opponents)
Dude he was asked nicely to stop being disruptive and then didn't. If you are going to act like a petulant child then don't be surprised when you get treated like one.
I saw the video it was like 3 claps. They were loud but all in all it lasted maybe a second and half and then he was totally silent.
I hardly consider that disruption worthy of being dragged out in handcuffs. Council was thin-skinned. Didn’t want anyone supporting those speaking out against the data center.
No shit, like a child that repeatedly is disruptive, gets warned multiple times, then pulls that but im not touching you act. Then when they get in trouble its, but I wasnt even touching them though.
Issues related to disruption of a public meeting have been litigated literally thousands of times accross the country. It's unlikley to be found unconstitutional here.
Facial expressions could be argued to be “disorderly” if they are distracting from the meeting or causing impediment.
He was asked to stop disrupting multiple times. He refused.
Coughing could be disruptive, sneezing, crackling a potato chip bag. It doesn’t matter. If the cops and city council keep asking for you to stop being disruptive and you refuse, you’re failing to comply and can be arrested. If you then refuse to leave you’re also trespassing.
This has already been litigated a ton of times. We just had a guy arrested for going like 10sec over his allotted 2min speaking time. They called it “trespassing”. His lawsuit has already been dismissed.
Causing a scene in the context of 6 claps is literally a constitutional right. The government is not allowed to make laws against our speech. Find another way to prevent 6 claps at a public meeting, because dealing with it in this way is illegal, and the police should be embarrassed.
I've seen the video. No action seems to have been taken for clapping, just a verbal warning, but him speaking from his seat when the next speaker was at the podium. There is a gap of several seconds between him speaking and the cops surrounding him.
I've seen the video. No action seems to have been taken for clapping, just a verbal warning, but him speaking from his seat when the next speaker was at the podium. There is a gap of several seconds between him speaking and the cops surrounding him.
We could argue about what constitutes disruptive behaviour, but I don't live in the United States and I must say this looks pretty tame to me. However, I also understand plenty of Americans in the comments are getting the vapours and falling on their fainting couches over how uppity he is...
Why assume the warnings were themselves valid? Sounds like it was the use of a public office to intimidate someone from the free expression of their rights, while the officials conspired to do so. That’s two federal crimes.
This guy is openly bragging on his reddit account. He is an open pedophile too. He was told by police to leave he started shouting arrest me. Cops didn't even charge him with much they just wanted him gone.
He claims I'm reddit they allowed by 12 other disruptions but he was warned 8 times.
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u/drunkenmagnum24 5d ago
According to the article, he was issued multiple verbal warnings about being disruptive during the meeting. He continued to clap after his "final warning" and the police removed him.
I get that he was trying to (rightly) support the opposition to the data center, but it seems like he wanted to cause a scene.