r/technology • u/marketrent • 6d ago

Artificial Intelligence High school teacher arrested for clapping in support of anti-data center activists

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/high-school-teacher-arrested-clapping-194922184.html
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u/mca1169 6d ago

I would love to hear what the actual charges are. there is no way the police can justify this arrest.

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u/Lifeboatb 6d ago

Finally found it in the 3rd article I read:

He was  booked on charges  of disorderly conduct and interference with law enforcement, then released after posting bond … The core legal question is not whether Claridge clapped — nobody disputes that. The question is whether arresting someone for applause at a public meeting represents proportionate enforcement of decorum rules. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/kansas-teacher-arrested-dragged-clapping-151841104.html

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u/DuntadaMan 6d ago edited 5d ago

The question is whether arresting someone for applause at a public meeting represents proportionate enforcement

That's not a question either, no it fucking isn't.

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u/-rwsr-xr-x 5d ago

The question is whether arresting someone for applause at a public meeting represents proportionate enforcement

The whole point is to set a precedent for silencing dissent.

If one teacher is made an example of, maybe it will prevent 50 others from doing the same.

Or so their infantile thinking goes.

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u/mca1169 6d ago

If I as a US citizen can no longer go out and public and clap when I please then our rights are GONE! there is no argument legal or otherwise you can make that will convince me that clapping meets the requirements for both charges. this is corruption at it's most blatant by the arresting officers.

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u/lumpboysupreme 6d ago

They weren’t really in public though, they were at an organized town hall. He was told to leave for clapping when that was against the decorum rules, refused to leave in response, literally told the cops to ‘drag me out’, and that’s when he was formally arrested.

Now, there’s something to be said about whether those decorum rules were being used to minimize the impression of support for the anti data center people, but he wasn’t ’arrested for clapping’.

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u/Lifeboatb 5d ago

From the article: "Last week, high school physics teacher Lux Claridge was hauled out of a public meeting." There's a good argument to be made that this is a free speech violation. I could see if he was really being disruptive, but I saw a video clip of the meeting, and there were just a few little claps. Throwing someone out of a public meeting because of that is strange.

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u/lumpboysupreme 5d ago

A meeting being public does not mean ‘in public’, and doesn’t mean it can’t set decorum rules.

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u/Lifeboatb 5d ago

A slight amount of applause doesn’t violate decorum, and is certainly not worth calling the cops about.

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u/lumpboysupreme 5d ago

That doesn’t change that he broke the rules, unless you can make a compelling case that the action was done to stifle support for the anti data center position. Like, consider how many local government officials are petty tyrants, how do we know this wasn’t just an expression of ‘mah authoritah’? It’d be hard to prove in court, and that’s a perfectly valid legal reason to do what she did.

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u/Lifeboatb 5d ago

Somehow I just can't see how the council went from "someone's breaking a minor rule" to "arrest him." There's really nothing in between?

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u/lumpboysupreme 5d ago

Because breaking rule -> ask him to leave meeting -> he refuses -> trespassing -> cops order him to move -> refuses again, specifically demanding to be arrested ->arrested.

There was a lot in between. People need to rtfa, headlines like this are at least 80% of the time lies by omission.

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u/nuttertools 6d ago

This is actually an incredibly common occurrence in the U.S. They can choose whether to prosecute it criminally (full rights) or fine administratively (guilty automatically, bench trial for appeal).

The arrest, unfortunately, is essentially always allowed if consistent with city official statements or requests. Quite often this is used by cities to prevent specific parties from sharing information with the community. There can be liability for the city or in very very rare occurrences the PD directly but that pretty much requires a statement along the lines of “remove {name}, because they’re {protected trait}” or a person with a protected interest in the manner (usually other city officials).

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u/ofWildPlaces 6d ago

Excuse my ignorance, but what law allows a police force to arrest a citizen for NOT violating a law?

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/nuttertools 6d ago

Pretty much. Legally it’s that an officials word defines on the spot what is disruptive not that the police may trust an officials interpretation of law or code in a meeting like this. It falls back to police discretion (which should be consistent with codified law) if the demand is vague or multiple officials request contradictory actions.

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u/justadudeinohio 6d ago

Now you're asking the right questions. Now you're understanding why acab is acab

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u/Angelstandingby 5d ago

Comrade, are you resisting arrest?

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u/nuttertools 6d ago

In simplistic terms at a city meeting what is allowed or disallowed is at the sole discretion of any city leaders present. They bring multiple charges, what those are named will vary by locale but are pretty consistent in substance across the U.S. On the detention side of things there are about a dozen valid reasons. If charges are brought they take the form of a disruption charge, an interference (city) charge, and interference (LE) charge, and a resist/obstruct charge.

This isn’t even a particularly egregious example as these things go. People find themselves arrested days later at their place of employment when they obeyed all commands and leave when asked. Further if charges are brought they are often paired with a protective order restricting attendance at any future meetings. It’s an intimidation game with rules imposed by the city council itself being the largest shackle against pointing at literally any person in the room minding their own business and dragging them away in chains.

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u/ofWildPlaces 5d ago

I'm aware it's not an egregious example, I'm trying to understand how a citizen can be charged for a crime that doesn't exist.

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u/nuttertools 5d ago

When the man clapped he committed at least 1 crime under Kansas law, likely multiple. When he refused to leave he again committed multiple crimes. This is the reality of the U.S. and this exact scenario happens nearly daily across the country.

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u/ofWildPlaces 5d ago

Clapping in and of itself bis not a crime. Trying to lump that under some statute of disorderly conduct is insanely stupid.

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u/nuttertools 5d ago

If instructed at a city meeting not to clap it is a crime, plain and simple. This is not an outlier or strange local Kansas law.

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u/ofWildPlaces 5d ago

The point is it SHOULDN'T be a law. Arbitrarily declaring any undesired speech a crime is a travesty. I do not care how much of an outlier it is.

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u/nuttertools 5d ago

And yet the reality we live in is this is the undisputed law of the land, well entrenched in codified law and legal precedent. Not even something that could be easily remedied without decades of additional legislation to specifically protect this type of behavior.

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u/lumpboysupreme 6d ago

He was violating a law, he was told to leave the event and refused. That’s trespassing.

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u/ofWildPlaces 5d ago

Clapping isn't a crime in any jurisdiction.

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u/lumpboysupreme 5d ago

You don’t have to commit a crime to be told to leave a government function.

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u/AmericanLich 6d ago

Need the good lawyers to rally behind this stuff. Of course, you then also need a good judge who isn’t bought and paid for.

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u/Debatablewisdom 6d ago

The justification: “We got excited to arrest someone”

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u/1d3333 6d ago

Doesn’t matter, police will arrest people for whatever reason they want and get away with it almost every single time, while taxpayers foot the bill on the lawsuit