Man appeals conviction for standing in Times Square
In June of 2004 Matthew Jones of Brooklyn was standing in Times Square, talking with friends. Police arrested him for it. More than three years later, he is fighting the charge.
In the prosecution’s view, it appears, the innocent do not dawdle. According to the original complaint against Mr. Jones, the officer “observed defendant along with a number of other individuals standing around” on a public sidewalk in June 2004. Mr. Jones was “not moving, and that as a result of defendants’ behavior, numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around defendants.”The New York Times visited Times Square and noted several people standing around: "a man eating clams out of a Styrofoam container; two men smoking cigarettes together; a man waiting for a woman to finish a phone call; a guy looking at a map; a young woman sending a text message; two men handing out tour brochures; and a family of five, including an infant in a stroller, who stopped to look at the brochures." No one was arrested. Link (Thanks, Michael!)Mr. Jones refused to move when asked, said the officer, Momen Attia, and then tried to run away. When Officer Attia tried to handcuff him, he “flailed his arms,” earning a second charge for resisting arrest.
After spending the night in jail, Mr. Jones contested the main charge and asked that it be dismissed. When the judge demurred, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation the next day and received no further sentence. But he soon filed an appeal, arguing that there had been no basis for the arrest in the first place.
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Was the guy who was arrested for standing
around black?
This seems just too bizarre. It seems like there has to be more to the story? Did the NYT interview the arresting officer?
people who stop in midstream on the sidewalks of NYC /should/ be arrested.
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people who stop in midstream on the sidewalks of NYC /should/ be arrested.
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wow! that's a bold statement. forgive me if i forgot what street i was on and needed to regain my bearings, or, Eru forbid, I drop something and decide to stop and pick it up.
In denser urban locations, it's a big problem for a lot of pedestrians when a few stand blocking the sidewalk, and don't feel the need to move for anyone. This is usually done out of obliviousness, but occasionally it's done to provoke conflict.
OTOH, this guy was arrested because he "refused to move when asked and then tried to run away"? How is running away not complying with an order to move?
While this may appear as over-zealous'ness of the officer, who knows what they were thinking. I mean, there's a whole lot of unsolved crime in New York, maybe the officer thought this group of people were responsible for it. But coming back to reality, I do think it's funny that the A.D.A. even went ahead with charges. I use a phrase on a daily basis that I think needs to be said..."Are you retarded?"
this crowd generally runs with "all cops are corrupt assholes" vibe. You'll just get flamed for suggesting otherwise.
i suggested it in a previous thread and was told that since non corrupt cops don't turn corrupt cops in, there is no such thing as a good cop.
I need to tell my sister since she got the corrupt chief of police fired and almost got kicked off the force during the attempt. if only she knew a year of hardship and stress wasn't needed, since she was just another bad cop.
@Cpt. Tim:
I have, of course, met many (most) cops whose hearts are at least in the right place.
But the fact that someone corrupt got all the way up to chief of your sister's police department really just proves what I said in the other thread.
I'll allow that there are occasionally good cops. But, as your sister nearly found out, they don't last long on the job. That leaves people whose hearts might be in the right place, but who have found that, in order to eat, they sometimes just need to look the other way, and real, actual, corrupt assholes. Geez, watch Lessig's corruption lecture that Cory posted the other day. It's got the problem all laid out right there.
Police corruption is systemic. It's not just the guy taking kickbacks or getting his sociopathic jollies by tasering people who are just arguing with him; it's the system that allows them to do that without losing their jobs or facing charges or, if they do, being appropriately penalized. And that system includes every single person on the force--even the ones who don't like it one bit.
@Timkuo
You 'might' be right on loitering. However, if this is the case, why only one person charged if he was in a group? If he was "standing still" as the report seems to indicate, does that mean that the others were "moving around" so as to not get charged with loitering? Or did they scatter when the cop showed up?
If there was a phone complaint (or any complaint) made, then the officer could easily have walked up to the group, said "Hey, someone complained about you being here, I'm just doing my job, would you mind moving on"...it's simple, it's easy...
As to "flailing hands"...I'm afraid that if I were ever arrested (for something like this) I would get charged for resisting. I talk with my hands alot. If arrested, I would likely throw my hands up in the air in a 'what did I do" fashion. Which, could be described as "flailing'...or resisting.
I think your generally right on the attitude here about it almost always being the polices fault. However, I must say that many people who are "bullied" by the police (which again is only a small portion of the force, but they do make the news...) are willing to accept without reasoning that they have committed an offence and want to be done with it. Take the fine or whatever and be done with it. I think Sen. Craig tried this and failed miserably.
Since when did loitering become an arrestable offence...I thought it was just a fine...
@10,
"Mr. Jones refused to move when asked..." So the officer apparently did what you suggested -- asked the person to move. I assume the running away was after a refusal to move and a subsequent effort to write him a ticket or whatever.
This reminds me of that bicycler story a while back, the one where the guy was tackled by the police for nothing other than wanting to ride his bike to and from the airport. That was his story. The real story was uncovered later, which was that he wanted to ride his bike on an expressway where bikes are prohibited and liable to cause an accident, not to mention get himself killed, and they forced him off the bike when he ignore them and tried to get on the expressway.
I just have a feeling this case is the same type of thing. We have the defendent's word that he was standing there minding his own business and was assaulted by the police for no reason whatsoever. Hey, it's possible. Could be a dirty cop. But usually we're only being given part of the story, which is the part that doesn't make the storyteller look like a fool. (They always leave that part out.)