A Houston protestor ticketed for carrying an Anti-Bush poster

[Catherine Vincent]

The protestor sued the city and won. It turns out the officer didn't like his anti-Bush sign. LOL. Read on:

Houston's silly sign law soon to be erased

Sure, it's a free country. So you'd think you'd be free to speak your mind or scrawl your opinions on a poster, right? Signs like these are banned under Houston law. Wrong. Believe it or not, Houston has a law making it a crime to carry posters on public streets.

City leaders called it a bad law and they even told police to ignore it. But one HPD officer either didn't get the memo or decided to enforce it anyway and now taxpayers will pick up the tab. "I have no idea what people were thinking when they passed a law like that," Mayor Bill White said. Way back in the Vietnam war era, Houston passed an ordinance forbidding people and animals from displaying posters on city streets. "But that's what America is about," said protester Christopher Kelly.

One night in 2004, Kelly was carrying an anti-Bush protest sign down Main Street when he says he was approached by a police officer. "He first asked me to give him the sign. And I said I would not give him my sign. It's the right to, people to protest," said Kelly. "And you have freedom of speech. And he kept asking for my sign and then it ended up to be a physical struggle between me and three police officers." They ended up writing him a ticket, specifically citing that he was carrying an anti-Bush poster.

...more
http://www.khou.com/news/local/politics/stories/khou070130_mh_signs.35b99df2.html

[Hobarticus]

1. Maybe those peace officers can serve the common good in Baghdad...

That kind of go-getter peace-and-quiet lovin' mentality would be helpful overseas, right now.

[KansDem]

2. Houston must be a pretty tough town...

ARTIST: Huddie Ledbetter
TITLE: Midnight Special

Well, you wake up in the morning
You hear the work bell ring
And they march you to the table
You see the same old thing

Ain't no food upon the table
And no fork up in the pan
But you better not complain, boy
You get in trouble with the man

{Refrain}
Let the midnight special shine a light on me (3X)
Let the midnight special shine a ever-lovin' light on me

Yonder come miss Rosie
How in the world did you know
By the way she wears her apron
And the clothes she wore
Umbrella on her shoulder
Piece of paper in her hand
She come to see the governor
She want to free her man

{Refrain}

If you're ever in Houston
Well you'd better do right
You'd better not gamble
And you better not fight
Or the sheriff will grab you
And the boys will bring you down
The next thing you know boy
Well, you're prison bound

{2 x Refrain}

[acmejack]

3. Back in the day they would have beat him silly.

No one in their right mind screwed with the Houston cops back in the sixties. They were notorious...

[Gold Metal Flake]

14. Back in the day...

They might handcuff you, beat you, throw you into Buffalo Bayou and watch you drown. Well, that was the early 70's anyway.

[DKRC]

27. The 3 S's nt

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Love it! Houston had to pay just under $25,000!

[madinmaryland]

8. Houston "Taxpayers" will pay the $25K.

[DKRC]

15. That officer should be held liable for the $25k. nt

[jilln]

19. The officer was complying with the law.

Sick as it is, he did his job correctly, it would appear.

[AnneD]

20. All the officers were told

to ignore that old law. It really needed to be taken off the books. This guy didn't get the memo.
The law should be taken off the books and I guess it will now.
The officers in general have come along way since the Jose Torres case. I am a bit disturbed in that I see them getting a bit 'fiesty' again. They need to have those tasers taken away.

[DKRC]

26. My reasoning on this

falling to that officer is from the OP:

"They ended up writing him a ticket, specifically citing that he was carrying an anti-Bush poster."

IMO the officer was using a bad law to enforce his personal political preference. Let him put his money where his mouth is and maybe it'll curb his actions in future.

[Catherine Vincent]

28. Your reasoning is spot on.

If the protestor had an anti-Clinton or anti-Kerry poster, the officer would not have saw fit to write a ticket. He only wrote the ticket because he was a Bush fan. Because the protestor sued and won and the Houston taxpayers have to pay the $25K, I hope this officer was scolded by his superiors because of his partisan stupidity.

[TexasLawyer]

5. Damn, I wish I had gotten that ticket!

Now lawyers down here at Houston City Hall have agreed to pay just under $25,000 to settle that lawsuit. And city councilmembers are about to vote on an ordinance that would once again make it legal to carry a poster on the streets of Houston.

[idealistMO]

6. I would never pay such a ticket n/t

[Catherine Vincent]

9. The protestor didn't pay. He protested the ticket too! :)

He sued the city and won close to $25K! Did you read the part where the protestor noticed that the same evening Astro fans were at the stadium and they had posters but none of them were written a ticket? That wingnut cop just didn't like his message.

[idealistMO]

7. I would never pay such a ticket n/t

[youngdem]

10. This is an easy win for a newbie civil rights attorney

This guy's phone is no doubt ringing off the hook with offers of pro bono assistance, and offers of a assistance with a suit for damages.

The charges will be dropped, no doubt.

This will just end up being a cool story this guy gets to tell, and maybe he'll drive a new car for his troubles.

That said, I would move from Houston as soon as possible, as the cops there may seek to throw the book at him at their next opportunity.

[HuffleClaw]

11. "a physical struggle between me and three police officers."

and the guy wasn't charged? usually if you so much as pull away from a cop who grabs you the charge is 'assault on a police officer'.

[Catherine Vincent]

16. He (the protestor) was probably white.

But I could be wrong. :shrug:

[midnight]

12. Hey this sound like the town I live in. The police tried to ticket

my husband for our cindy sign. Police told my husband that it was the law that he could not have that sign in his yard. My husband asked which law he was referring to. He told us to look it up on the internet. They arrested my husband a year later when he was coming home from work. They questioned him for several hours before drawing his blood. Police blood lab said his ambian cr was at 70. Police lab report said 50-350 is therapeutic. My husband said then for him it is not. He just finished working 10 hrs.

[Dr.Phool]

13. Where do you live?

I'd probably get arrested there for my bumper stickers.

[midnight]

18. We live in wisconsin in Jim Sennsenbrenners dist. Interestingly

my husband had his opponets bumber sticker on his bumber on his car.

[cui bono]

23. I'm sorry but I don't understand your post... why did they arrest him and draw blood?

What did that have to do with the sign?

[midnight]

24. Coming home at 1:10 A.M. they thought he was out drinking?

He had a dent in his car, and police stopped him to ask if he was in a car accident. Our oldest did it.

[midnight]

25. They thought he was in a car accident. Car he drives has a

dent on the back. Then he asked for liscense, and asked him to get out, and then he did breath test-three times. Nothing showed up so they took his blood.

[nosmokes]

17. it's frightening that we allow these prigs to carry weapons and give them

powers of arrest when they can't grasp basic concepts of the constitution.

[AnneD]

21. I have attended many a protest in Houston...

the police generally have their hands full protecting the demonstrators from some of the neocon idiots. I remember an officer explaining to an abnoxious man that was telling us to shut up, that we did indeed have the right to peaceable assembly.

[cui bono]

22. I was told by sheriff's to put my sign away in a Los Angeles subway station...

It was after a protest and I was going home. I was alone and tired and just did it without asking why. Very unlike me, but then you know the rep of the LAPD and I'm not sure how the sheriffs are and there was hardly anyone around. I put it down by my side and they said I had to fold it up. So I rolled it up. I wondered what the laws were but never looked into it. It was the first time that happened and I always take the train to the downtown protests.