Police Shut Down Anti-Violence Fundraiser Over Rapper's Hologram

An anonymous reader writes: A Chicago rapper by the name of Chief Keef has been making headlines recently after the city launched a campaign to deny his performance at an anti-violence event. The event was organized to raise funds for victims of recent Chicago murders in which another rapper was slain. Keef is currently wanted on warrants in the region but is living on the East Coast. He was expected to perform via a live stream projection. While Chicago officials worked to deny his performance from occurring in the city, promoters vowed that he would still perform.

A recent concert called Craze Fest was just held at the Wolf Lake Pavilion in Hammond, Indiana. The Pavilion is part of a public park. The city of Hammond refused to let promoters hold the event unless they agreed that Chief Keef would not be allowed to perform. Instead, the promoters setup a live stream projection of the rapper and showed it at the end of the concert. Once the Hologram of Keef began performing, police rushed in and began shutting down the event. This raises some interesting questions about free speech and the role of technology in it. Here's a local news article, and some brief cellphone footage of the event.

Comments

Re:Unregulated speech, must stop at all costs!

[meta-monkey]

1) I think it was stupid to shut down somebody who, while he's had trouble, currently has a message of "stop the violence." The warrants for his arrest are about child support, not violence. Having a warrant does not negate your right to speech.

2) The issue for me would be the language of the permit. You want to do it on private property? No problem. But it is reasonable for a city to determine what acts may and may not perform on public property. So, did the permit say "these are the acts that will perform" and he wasn't on it? Did the permit say "Chief Keef will not perform" and then he did? If so, fine. Shame on the promoters for lying on the permit application. But if it wasn't in writing and they just said "he won't be here" then shame on the city.

Re:Raising questions about freedom of speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it has nothing to do with freedom of speech. If this rapper wants to speak in Chicago, why doesn't he just go there in person?

Oh, that's right. He's a criminal, a fugitive and a deadbeat dad with multiple warrants out on him. Boo-hoo, how unfair that he's not being allowed to promote himself on city property.

Yes they probably could...

[sjbe]

Would the police also have shut them down if they started playing clips of Roman Polanski (wanted in the US for raping a 13 year old girl) movies?

If that was prohibited in the terms for the permit then yes. Not arguing if that is right or wrong but they could probably legally do it as long as they weren't stupidly clumsy about the whole thing.

Re:Yes they probably could...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter what the terms of the permit are; those terms are illegal. The government may only enact reasonable content-neutral restrictions on speech. Saying that a specific person cannot perform or a specific viewpoint cannot be expressed runs afoul of well-established First Amendment case law.

Re:Free speech isn't the only right in play here

[DarkOx]

If I were sitting on the SCOUTS I would have to question even those restrictions. The first amendment provides for the right of peaceful assembly, not the right of peaceful assembly when adequate sanitation as defined by a government agency happens to be in place.

I find it hard to accept the government can make a credible claim that an anti-violence fundraiser isn't a peaceful assembly, until there is probably cause to expect its anything else the government should have NO RIGHT to interfere irrespective of the number of porta-cans present.