60yr old man arrested for wearing t-shirt

March 4 -- Roger and Stephen Downs had these shirts made at Crossgates Mall, but Stephen Downs was arrested when he refused to take his off and leave the mall. Lindsay Cohen reports.
Click to expand...
 
Freedom by and whole is an exercise that can only be fully utilized within the confines of ones own private property otherwise it would be infringing upon the freedom of others. Thats the balance point. The public world has guidelines and restrictions.
 
now if it was a cradle of filth 'jesus is a c*nt' shirt or somesuch then i could understand it but 'peace on earth' causing a ruckus? somebody is wearning their jobsworth hat a little tight today methinks.

add to the fact that with a hundred other peace protesters there the tshirt is hardly going to cause a huge amount of offense - a good bunch of people there already agree! :D
 
The complaint read that there was a disturbance within the mall and a fight almost broke out. They didn't walk away from those who tried to pick them out for the shirts, but fought on an equal level. The mall detective staff determined that the presence of the tshirt was the catalyst and, as they have the right as the private owner of the property to do so, asked that they remove either conflict generating garment or themselves.

The trouble was with the people who tried to start the fight in the first place... but even that would not have been an issue if the neutral medium had not be tainted by the presence of a heated issue article. It was after all within the state where the WTT were and they above all have a rather short fuse in regards to the middle east/terrorist issues today.

.....

as a sidebar, I disagree with Flavios title of the thread. He wasn't arrested for a tshirt. He was arrested for trespassing.
 
unclehobart said:
The trouble was with the people who tried to start the fight in the first place...
Click to expand...

Exactly, if anyone should have been removed it would be idiots that would hassle a guy over a shirt promoting peace.

If I wore a football jersey of some team that someone at the mall didn't like should I be ejected? ....or the idiot that wants to start trouble over my shirt?
 
Ive seen that happen as well in New Orleans when the Fla Gators would spill into town for a game with LSU. Gator fans would get the cold shoulder everywhere.. but they were actively being buttholes and deserved to be shunned for the most part.
 
so he was arrested for trespassing??? damn. oddly enough i wore my god of fuck shirt to malls and never had crap like that so i dont see how a peace shirt is offensive. someone was arrested for the Jesus is a cunt shirt ris. it was a while back and he sued on the first amendment basis and won. so why cant the guy with the peace sign sue? flav i think if it causes any trouble by any means theyll ask you to remove it
 
I was once asked to leave a mall for wearing ...get this...a Ronnie RAY-gun t-shirt...

...you might have seen this back then...Ron Reagan in a space suit with this ridiculous campy ray gun thing pointed at Soviet ICBM's...

..anyway, at the time he was quite popular and someone took offense to it...

well..in retrospect it COULD have been the notice on the back that said "if you don't agree with the message on the front of this shirt you have the choice to fuck off..."

...anyway....I had a choice too....take it off or go to rent-a-cop jail for trespassing...

Their joint...I left, and so did my dollars, forever....

MADrin
 
I heard him on on a radio interview yesterday.

He was wearing a Peace on Earth"/"Give peace a chance" shirt & his son was wearing a No War in Iraq/Let the inspections work shirt. The guards asked them to remove the shirt & they refused. Then the mall cops got a real cop to do the same. When the word arrest was mentioned, the kid did as asked. Not so the father. He was handcuffed & placed in the squad car & driven around the building to a temp cop shop & uncuffed. The police made "several" calls, trying to find how to handle it. They were finally instructed to bring him to the court for arraignment on Trespassing. Let go on own recognizance & it looks like they're dropping the charges altogether.

He's, by chance, an attorney.

The mall was wrong but they have the right to limit what is allowed on their property, Luis. Free Speech is on governement or common ground only. Not private property.

The mall should have demanded that they leave once they refused to remove the shirts. They have the right to do that. Since it wasn't done this way, it's a PR disaster.

I think it's wrong & idiotic but I also think the mall has this right on their property. Let's boycott that mall :D
 
I don't know, Gonz. Maybe it never really was America. We got rid of Joe eventually though, Maybe we can outlast the current theocratic leanings. Scares the hell out of me though.
 
The truly sad part. The 60's radicals were on to something. Then reality set in. They now drive BMWs & feed their kids imported wheat bran flakes before going off to work.

America was the "best" America under the repressive regime of Eisenhower. Somewhere between him & Clinton is the answer.
 
Gonz,
Not all of us...
Well, except for the wheat bran, gotta stay regular, y'know.

Actually, I grew up in the sixties, really became an ostensible adult in the seventies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top