The Bikes Against Bush guy was arrested.
After seeing that demonstration and being assured the chalk was easily removed from the sidewalk with water, officers consulted with their superiors, placed Josh under arrest, and confiscated his bike & equipment. He was charged with vandalism and released on Sunday morning.
So he was doing a demo for the press, the police turned up, said it was vandalism, despite the chalk being water soluble, and chucked him in jail with a load of other cyclists. Right.
Pretty much it. I think the police called it ‘defacement of property,” which I suppose means vandalism.
First they needed the bomb squad, of course. I’m suprised they didn’t need the medical team to determine it was not anthrax.
Are we living in a police state? At some times and places, yes. It reminds me of a protester who sneaked into a Bush rally and shouted out three questions. Bush said “Isn’t it great we live in a society which allows free speech?” Campaign workers then took him out of the rally and he was threatened with arrest.
I recall about two years back, IBM ran an advertising campaign involving chalking penguins (it was Linux related, I think) on sidewalks of major cities.
IBM was fined in NYC and San Francisco for guess what, “Defacement of Property”.
And please keep in mind that many of these types of laws exist and are enforced in LIBERAL cities, such as NYC or San Francisco.
I dun think that this is anything to do with Bush since this sounds like a local issue where the people in charge are, you guessed it, LIBERALS!