Man arrested at Kansas City library speech after asking “provocative” questions | Hacker News Reader

Man arrested at Kansas City library speech after asking “provocative” questions

boingboing.net

52 pointskyleblarson18 comments

"On-duty officers posted to the event apparently did not get involved until later: he was arrested by a man out of uniform and paid by the event's organizers."

The idea that we allow people to hire off-duty cops who are allowed to carry firearms and arrest people is, to put it mildly, an incredibly bad idea.

Agreed. You should either be an on duty cop, or an off duty rent a cop. Not both. This could have been handled a lot better.

Not only this, but apparently you can be charged with resisting arrest by refusing to go along with the out-of-uniform off-duty cop-cum-security-guard.

Yeah, IANAL but my understanding in the US is that a cop is always a cop, even if they are off duty and wearing a bathrobe they can still arrest you, question you, etc.

Sure, but my point is if a security guard comes up to you and tells you to leave, saying no is not resisting arrest, but apparently if that security guard happens to be an off-duty cop then it is resisting arrest, and that seems wrong.

Sure but the problem is, some random, ununiformed dude maybe or maybe not claiming to be a cop starts to man-handle you and trying to physically subdue you.

It should be reasonable to resist that. How can anyone tell that is a lawful arrest vs an assault/prelude to kidnapping?

>How can anyone tell that is a lawful arrest vs an assault/prelude to kidnapping?

http://www.jimwagnerrealitybased.com/images/If_you_are_place...

That document seems to describe the ideal of the law. The reality is much different. DA's will side with and protect police, courts will believe police testimony over mine or other citizens. It also, mostly deals with citizens. not off duty police who can appear as citizens but then, after fact, apply/claim their authority as LEO.

Case in point, the man in above article is still being charged even though he was resisting a bogus arrest. Despite that article saying that "won't" happen.

Any citizen has the power of arrest. But yeah.

>The idea that we allow people to hire off-duty cops who are allowed to carry firearms and arrest people is, to put it mildly, an incredibly bad idea.

Anyone can make an arrest, the major difference being that as a normal citizen, you don't get immunity for wrongful arrest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_arrest

Anyone can carry firearms, and anyone can arrest people, depending of course on your state laws. That doesn't mean you won't be sued/charged if the defendant gets hurt in the process.

Apparently someone invited to an event and whom the operators of the event do not want arrested for trespassing can be trespassing, and the operators of the event can be arrested for saying they don't want him arrested for trespassing.

The ones paying the security guards are the Jewish Community Foundation, presumably of Kansas City. They are, I assume, the ones who wanted an attendee and a library employee arrested.

Their web site seems to be down at the moment, though.

The underlying article from BORDC says:

> ... the library agreed to allow off-duty police to be on the scene. However, the library set two conditions. First, nobody could be forcibly removed for asking an unpopular question. Second, nobody could be removed at all without consulting with the library staff, who would only allow an individual to be removed if staff concluded they were an imminent threat.

The man, this "off-duty cop", attacked and battered two other people and held them against their will (kidnapping). Where are the charges for this?

I can only assume that the district attorney has chosen not to prosecute these crimes.

In fact, it seems to me that police are very rarely ever prosecuted for crimes.

We need another Voltaire. We risk losing so much.

"freedom" of speech! indeed!!

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