So, our friend is out of jail and has been assigned a court date. Needless to say, everyone involved is of varying degrees of pissed off.

Megan, Radley, Julian, and Jason all have good takes on what went down — I suggest checking out their posts for some insight–and a little laughter too.

Photographs, video and eyewitnesses aplenty, this should be a slam dunk against the government — but that does not mean that this is all ok. An arrest is still an arrest and our friend faces consequences for doing absolutely nothing wrong. She was polite, cooperative and stone-cold sober. Her crime, in addition to “bopping” (as overheard spoken by one of the arresting officers), was apparently inquiring as to what exactly she was doing wrong. For that, she was thrown up against a pillar in front of about 20 friends and summarily arrested — for quietly celebrating TJ’s birthday.

It should be noted that if she was “MMM-bopping,” the officers may have had a stronger case. But that is neither here nor there.

N.B.:

After calming down a bit, I realized that the original version of this post may have, albeit unintentionally, painted the entire police force with a single stroke. The simple fact of the matter is that this was a wrongful arrest by a single police officer or group of officers. This should not even reflect the entire Park Police or even all those on duty last evening/this morning.

That said, I have no love for that particular officer and his over-the-top actions.

Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Freedom on Film, Profiles in Governance, Daily Rant