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Police Arrest Man For Refusing To Tweet
RichZellich writes "Police arrested a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records, saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating. The crowd at a mall where Justin Bieber was appearing got out of control, and police wanted the man to send a tweet asking for calm; he refused and they arrested him on a felony assault charge 'for putting people in danger.'"
I'm pretty sure that he was tweeting to the crowd at the time he was asked to do this, and I'm pretty sure the crowd was reading those tweets, cause they reacted to a tweet about him being arrested. If an exec who helped disorganize (I can't say organize cause it wasn't) this event refuses to help disarm the situation then he should be arrested and charged. Idiots who don't bother to asses the whole situation and knee jerk that he was falsely arrested need to step back and smell the unruly crowd and if you haven't been in one of these you have no idea how dangerous it can become really quickly. Any steps to help keep them calm would help immensely even if it only reached 1 in 25 of them it would still have a calming effect.
You're obligated to comply with a lawful order from a police officer. Failing to do so is unlawful. So if the cop says,"tell them to leave [because you've created a dangerous situation by being here]" you'd better comply, or you'll get sent down. Just because they told him to do it with twitter makes no difference.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I Agree.
I once helped organize a peaceful public march on public sidewalks that ended in a public park with a community picnic. I had to obtain indemnity forms from all participants for my own protection (in case someone slipped and twisted an ankle), but more imnportantly, also obtain insurance to compensate the city if there was any damage: $250,000 worth, given the size of the crowd. (It was actually cheap, about $200).
I was also expected to ensure that people acted in an ORDERLY manner, and would have been required to pay for police presence if the crowd was expected to be large.
The point here was that the event was badly organized and the organizers charged regardless of whether they cooperated with "tweeting" or not. They just made a bad situation worse by not cooperating.
In Liberty, Rene
Just as some background, Roosevelt Field Mall is less than 10 miles away from where the Walmart employee was trampled to death last year during the Black Friday bumrush in Valley Stream. Both towns are served by the same (Nassau county) PD. Im sure lessons learned from last year informed their decision to shut the event down.