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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.
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.
This doesn't raise any questions about freedom of speech. This demonstrates that freedom of speech doesn't exist.
In this case, you need a permit to use the park. Their permit said that they would not have this wanted fugitive perform. They violated the terms of their permit, so were shut down. This is pretty straightforward and they had to know this would happen - they probably wanted the publicity.
Had he physically appeared, they could have arrested him as the warrants are independent of free speech. But you don't get to censor speech, even by people with warrants. Parks count as public fora with respect to speech.
And as for "they agreed he would not perform" giving them leverage, that may work over the warrant issue, but as he did not physically appear, it amounts to needing to get pre-clearance from government on what you are going to speak about in a public forum, which is a no no. Good luck with that at the lawsuit trial.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They spent 3 hours trying to pepper spray, Taser, tackle, and finally shoot the hologram.
The police chief is requesting an increase in the budget for the purchase of weapons to deal with holograms.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
The victim the concert was fundraising for was the child of another member of Keef's gang, who was killed as an opposing gang fled after shooting and killing Keef's crewman Cato. The city were very concerned the concert would turn into a gang shoot-out. This isn't about censorship of violent lyrics (although it's a "poster child" case), it's about preventing the imminent incitement of violence. Judge the situation as you will, just take into account it wasn't lyrical censorship.
Honestly, these days the law seems to be "whatever the fuck the police say it is until a court tells them otherwise".
They don't care what is legal. They don't care what is Constitutional. They seem to believe they have limitless magical powers unconstrained by reality.
My only conclusion it is time to stop treating the cops as the ones who know and enforce the law. The cops enforce the law selectively, incorrectly, or in ways they know to be blatantly false.
From demanding you stop recording them or delete images, to charging you with resisting arrest when you weren't being arrested in the first place ... the police seem to neither know nor care what the fucking law says.
Which means all of them need to be wearing body cameras at all times, and much more aggressively charged when they break the law. Enough with this the police are above the law and can make it up as they go.
Start putting more of them in prison with the rest of the crooks, and maybe we'll see change.
But the last decade or so has pretty much demonstrated they simply do not adhere to the law. Either by committing perjury with "parallel construction" , or by hiding unconstitutional wiretaps with devices they won't admit to using ... the trend has been for police to stop giving a damn about the law.
Which means it's time we stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt of being honest players. Increasingly, they're anything but.
And since it's impossible to separate the good from the bad, and they won't do it themselves, it's time to treat them as if they all have a higher burden of proof for their actions.
None of this "because we said so shit", because that usually gets proven false when the video comes out.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How ironic. You invite a known instigator of violence to an anti-violence concert.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
They can't deny a permit based on the content of the speech.
Here's an excellent analysis and explanation by Eugene Volokh.
Yes. They could arrest him immediately on the warrants, which is separate. But as he did not physically appear, it amounts to needing pre-clearance from government, on content, to speak in a public forum, which a park is.
And that is an easy win for the First Amendment. They should get nailed in a lawsuit.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The thing is...they can put whatever restrictions they want, and you can then either put up with it, or go to court over it, spend lots of money on lawyers. If you win, all you get is to exercise your rights, either way you pay out the big money; out of pocket.
Then, should you want another event, expect to be denied or offered the same terms and to AGAIN need to go to court over it, and pay out big bucks to win again.
Mass Cann here in Boston had this problem year after year. The city would deny their permit, they would sue, they would win, next year, same thing.
So effectively, there is a massive unapproved tax on events the city officials don't like.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The cops enforce the law selectively, incorrectly, or in ways they know to be blatantly false.
Your rant is dead on, but the above portion of it is accurate in even more ways than you might suspect--for example, the Supreme Court recently said that it;s OK for a police officer to arrest you, because of something that he THINKS is illegal, even if it isn't, because (and to quote Dave Barry here, "I am not making this up") it is unreasonable to expect a police officer to know all the laws they are enforcing.
So if you, Joe Citizen who has no training in law or any intersection with it, do something illegal that you did not know it was illegal, you can be charged, because "ignorance of the law is no excuse." If Joe Policeofficer arrests you for sitting on your lawn when that activity was perfectly legal, that's ok, because police can't be expected the know the law.
Honestly, the US today is like Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, and George Orwell all got together and wrote a manual called "How to Fuck Up Democracy" and some assholes in government made it required reading.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
imo Keef is targeted by nearly every barney fife in america because hes guilty of 'contempt of cop.'
As well as a number of felonies, apparently.
his violations include failing to notify for change of address during parole,
Well,yes. That's one of the conditions of parole, you keep the state informed of where you live & work.
(In fact, you usually need to get *permission* to move while you're on parole.)
and making a video at a gun range.
He's a convicted felon, it's a felony for him to *hold* a gun. He made the video providing definitive proof of him committing said felony.
The state keeps him floating in and out of a revolving prison door largely for parole violations like testing positive for marijuana,
Stupid.
marijuana DUI's,
Extra stupid.
and general hooligan behavior. Hes no Bieber, so his 110mph speeding charge sent him to jail as well.
110 in a 55 zone. Within minutes of the trial for that particular bit of idiocy, he racked up a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
Perhaps he'd be better served actually staying in prison, since he can't seem to abide by the law, with a number of additional convictions and parole violations between his 1st felony conviction (January 2011, age 15) and June 2013.
I stand by my prior statement. The Chicago PD should have been *thrilled* to have him show up to perform at the concert. They'd know where he was, and be able to arrest him on the outstanding warrant(s). Sounds like *everyone* involved is dumber than a box of flat, wet rocks.
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.