The Pall on the Mall that is America

posted by The Sailor @ 6:26 PM Permalink

Police Arrest Anti-War Protester, 80, At Mall

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as “graphic anti-war images.”
[...]
Zirkel was charged with criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. He was released on bail. A spokeswoman for mall owner Simon Property Group did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Generally speaking, a mall has the right to control what happens on its property, said John McEntee, a Uniondale commercial litigation lawyer.

Gee, would that be this John McEntee!? Well there's a lawyer who never met a corporation he didn't suck hind tit on!

Why wouldn't the reporters do just a tiny bit of research [Note to Anastasia Economides & Matthew Chayes, it's called 'Google!'] and find how many Federal and state judges have disagreed with McEntee?

Maybe it's legally true in New York that cops can yank an 80 year old Catholic Deacon out of his seat in the mall and arrest him for wearing a t-shirt, maybe it's not.

Is it too much to ask that reporters do the same research as a profession that I can do as a citizen?

Seriously folks, they get paid for this? I get paid to do medical research, but on my own time I spent 20 minutes on Google, 2 phone calls, and have a more balanced piece.

Even if it is legal, it's even more legal to boycott and/or complain to the Simon Group who owns these bastions of non-free speech:
Simon Property Group, Inc.
225 West Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
(317) 636-1600




Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: free and independent press, free speech, Iraq war